Introduction: South African Fiction after Apartheid

Abstract

The "remaking of South Africa," while it was preceded by a generation of armed struggle against a system of state violence, was heralded by a period of "talks"--secret exchanges and public negotiation. The "postapartheid narrative," in other words, is in significant part the story of the emergence of a culture of debate, "umrabulo," 1 issuing in a series of protocols, white papers, parliamentary bills, and in 1996 a Constitution. The story is one that was both consensus building and controversy generating.