South African London

Andrea Thorpe teaches academic skills at QA Higher Education, London, and is a research associate of the University of Johannesburg.

• Introduction: Through the “eyes” of London 1 Peter Abrahams and Dan Jacobson: South African liberal humanists in postwar LondonDetour:“I have always been a Londoner”: Noni Jabavu, an unconventional South African in London 2 Swinging City: Todd Matshikiza’s contrapuntal London writing 3 Waiting and Watching in the city’s pleasure streets: Arthur Nortje’s poems set in London Detour: South African writers and London networks of black British activism 4 Securing the past: Self-reflexive, retrospective narratives of London in J.M. Coetzee’s Youth and Justin Cartwright’s In Every Face I Meet Epilogue: Between the cracks of the city: Transnational Solidarities in Ishtiyaq Shukri’s The Silent Minaret Index

'In this rich and engaging new study, Andrea Thorpe offers us the perspectives of those for whom London was variously a lens to view the world [...] The book is sharply cognisant of the production of 'South African' writing and writers in London and how this was racially structured [...] there is much in Thorpe's work for scholars of South African history and writing, London and urban histories, exile, modernity, and transnational movements.'Anne Macguire, The London Journal'Thorpe's re-evaluation of South African writing as London writing holds political as well as scholarly importance.'Hayley G. Toth, Journal of Postcolonial Writing'South African London is a well-conceived and engaging book, providing informed and insightful readings that nuance the contrapuntal paradigm of exilic writing. It makes a valuable contribution to South African literary history, as well as to the literature of London and to Diaspora Studies.'Peter Blair, Modern Language Review