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The Documentary: Writing a New South Africa: Cape Town: Place and Contested Space

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17/06/2015 GMT

Cape Town: Place and Contested Space

Writing a New South Africa

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Writing a New South Africa, Cape Town: Place and Contested Space

Exploring the themes of place and contested space amongst South Africa's literary talent

Exploring the themes of place and contested space in the works of South Africa's new literary talent and poets.

Poet Thabiso Mohare travels to Cape Town to meet a new generation of writers, poets and playwrights and look at the theme of place and contested space in their work and the history of the city. In a city dominated by the huge Table Mountain which still ensures a certain amount of segregation, he talks to Lauren Beukes, whose sci-fi visions of South African cities are internationally successful, playwright and novelist Nadia Davids about the undealt-with legacy of slavery in the city, and Thando Mgqolozana whose novels deal with a range of social issues. 

Thabiso explores the status of Afrikaans in the region among the younger generation, with poet Toni Stuart and short story writer SJ Naude, uncovering the roots of a language that was appropriated as a tool of oppression but is still felt to be a language of struggle and resistance among the communities where it originated. And there is uncompromising work from Nathan Trantraal and Ronelda Kamfer.

(Photo: An aerial view of the Green Point Stadium and Cape Town. Credit: David Rogers/Getty Images)

The Documentary: Writing a New South Africa

BBC World Service

Poet Thabiso Mohare presents a picture of South Africa now, as seen by a new generation of writers, 20 years into democracy.

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