SOURCE: La Guma, Alex. “South African Writing under Apartheid.” Lotus: Afro-Asian Writings, no. 23 (January-March 1975): 11-21.

La Guma is considered one of South Africa's most prominent writers of anti-apartheid literature. A member of the South African Communist Party who helped draft the Freedom Charter—a declaration of rights—he was imprisoned in early 1961 for helping to organize a strike. He is the author of several critically acclaimed works, all of which were banned in South Africa during his lifetime. In the following essay, La Guma, who left South Africa for a self-imposed exile in London and then Cuba, describes the effect of apartheid laws on black South African writers.

South African literature is a vast subject covering not only the stylistics of literature in four major languages—Nguni, Sotho, English and Afrikaans—but also the very content of the history of national groups that today make up the peoples...