Often, Afrikaans literature strikes us both as a more provocative critical space than South African writing in English. For such a small population, in the grand scheme of things (about 10 million speakers all told) – and given its bad international reputation from the apartheid years – it has produced an astonishing number of acclaimed contemporary writers. Marlene van Niekerk, Ingrid Winterbach, Etienne van Heerden, Eben Venter, Mark Behr and now, SJ Naudé, continue to build on the legacy of earlier, dissident figures like André Brink and Breyten Breytenbach. If we grant that Afrikaans also played a significant role in JM Coetzee’s development as a writer (a controversial move), this group rises to yet another level of international note.

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