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Title:Beware Wilbur Smith's Gaboon Adder: Purple Prose, Propaganda and Politics in South Africa
Author:Peck, RichardISNI
Year:1994
Periodical:Journal of Contemporary African Studies
Volume:12
Issue:2
Pages:151-178
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:apartheid
propaganda
novels
Literature, Mass Media and the Press
Politics and Government
Abstract:Many of the difficulties of forging a new South Africa arise from mindsets characteristic of the 'old South Africa'. To understand better those mindsets - particularly on the right - the author examines two kinds of fiction: government propaganda and mass-market entertainment writing. The propaganda examined consists of works largely from the 1970s, and published, sponsored, or clandestinely supported by the South African government. For the entertainment literature, the author relies on ten novels by Wilbur Smith, published between 1980 and 1991. Wilbur Smith is an ex-Rhodesian whose writing career has developed in South Africa and whose sales figures are huge. The present author examines how a number of myths (such as the myth: 'black Africans are inferior to whites') are presented in the government propaganda and in Smith's novels. The conclusion is that the political mythology of apartheid in Wilbur Smith's potboilers goes considerably beyond that presented in government propaganda. Its myths are anchored in the real world and reflect enough reality to make them plausible to his readers. They support a Manichean world view which leaves no room for the give and take of politics. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
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