South Africa has produced, and continues to produce, an extraordinarily rich and varied literary output. This courses focuses on the South African novel written in English from the 1940s, when the racist system of apartheid was first formalized, through to the present, post-apartheid society. It concentrates on writings by black South African writers, whose work provides an important and neglected literary archive that is not only of considerable aesthetic significance but also an important meditation on the meanings of racial identity, oppression and resistance. The course will raise questions about – among other things – the distinctiveness of South African writing, its relationship to South African history and politics, the conditions experienced by black women, the relationship between land and identity, the operations of urban space, the complexity of everyday and domestic life within state-structured racism, and the challenges presented to writers by the post-apartheid period. No prior familiarity with South African writing will be assumed, though preparatory background reading is recommended.