A world of letters

A world of letters retrieves an important but largely forgotten history of readers, reading practices and cultural debates in early apartheid South Africa. Corinne Sandwith pursues this history in the ephemeral spaces of oppositional newspapers, literary magazines, debating societies and theatre groups. What emerges from the diverse fragments is a rich tradition of public debate in South Africa on literature and culture. What also surfaces are a host of readers and critics – such as A.C. Jordan, Dora Taylor, Jack Cope and Ben Kies – whose lively cultural interventions form a significant part of South Africa’s literary-cultural and socio-political heritage. Offering a combination of historical narrative, critical analysis and biography, this elegantly written book recovers these neglected reading and debating communities in order to bring them into the present and to reclaim their constitutive role in both the literary archive and the public sphere.