Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The short story in South Africa – new trends and perspectives 2. “Translated from the dead”: The legibility of violence in Ivan Vladislavić’s 101 Detectives 3. Coloured by history, shaped otherwise: A "decolonial" reading of Zoë Wicomb 4. Hyper-compression and the rise of the deep surface: Flash fiction in "post-transitional" South Africa 5. Queer temporalities in two short stories by Makhosazana Xaba: The afterlife of Can Themba’s "The Suit" 6. Queerying examples of contemporary South African short fiction 7. Therianthropic power in Mohale Mashigo’s speculative short fiction 8. Navigating the spectacular in queer African erotic short fiction 9. Imagining Africa’s futures in two Caine Prize-winning stories: Henrietta Rose-Innes’s "Poison" and NoViolet Bulawayo’s "Hitting Budapest" 10. On reading, writing and being read: Journeying with the short story 11. Short stories born from the womb of the past 12. "Concrete fragments": An interview with Henrietta Rose-Innes 13. LongStorySHORT: Decolonising the reading landscape – A conversation with Kgauhelo Dube 14. "My stories will remain written the way I talk": A conversation with Niq Mhlongo

About the Author

Rebecca Fasselt is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Corinne Sandwith is Professor of English at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Reviews

"This volume of essays offers an up-to-the-minute overview of the extraordinarily diverse and vibrant palette of short story forms to be found in South Africa today. Combining critical acuity, theoretical eclecticism, and remarkable thematic breadth, this wonderful and timely volume provides a multiplicity of insights into a genre that refracts the complexity, the challenges, but also sheer energy of contemporary South African social dynamics." Russell West-Pavlov, Universität Tübingen, Germany"This volume is a groundbreaking, illuminating and incisive engagement with and interrogation of the exploration of a wider dimension of human experience that the short story genre post-2000 tackles. Setting up an interaction between the critic and literary craftsman, it will certainly provide an invaluable contribution to South African literary scholarship." Jabulani Mkhize, University of Fort Hare, South Africa"The Short Story in South Africa: Contemporary Trends and Perspectives provides a scholarly update on recent developments in South African short fiction, such as flash fiction, anti-detective modes, explorations of queer temporalities and spaces, and speculative Afrofuturistic dystopias. The essays in the volume are engaging, accessible, and pay close attention to textual detail – the kind of attention that short stories in particular reward." Sue Marais, Rhodes University, South Africa