Next year (hopefully, pandemic allowing) I’ll be starting a slightly longer project – a PhD where I hope to be reading all the novels written by South African women in English (or translated to English, though I’m still deciding on this one and so have included them here while I make up my mind) published between 1994 and 2019. It’s going to be a mammoth, thrilling life-changing task. I cannot wait!
Like all good projects, this one begins with a list.
What I didn’t anticipate was that making the list of South African women writers who were published in SA – simply getting down on paper the writers and their books, when they were published and by who – would be as much of a task as the reading. That’s probably half naïveté and half hoping that the publishers would keep those records themselves… not so.
I have started making my list, and I am updating it regularly. Thankfully, some self-published writers have reached out and I’m able to include those here too.
I don’t see any reason why everyone who wants to embark on this journey shouldn’t have access to it, so I’ll be posting as a series of blog posts, by year over the coming weeks and months. I may post a few pieces here in the future about some of the trends this list is already revealing, but for now, I’m focussing on getting the list out.
As I post them you will be able to find each list via the links below. If image isn’t a link yet it’s because I haven’t yet finished. Thank you in advance for your patience.
Enjoy!
Jen Thorpe 