The Politics of Crime: South Africa's New Socially Conscious Genre

[...]it can take visitors a while to get used to the fortress-like mentality in South Africa. Alternatively, for many black and "colored" (mixed-race) citizens, the police force would have to prove itself and gain legitimacy-a process still in effect and uncomfortably ineffective in most t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:World literature today 2015-03, Vol.89 (2), p.30-33
Main Author: Powers, J. L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apartheid
Citizenship
Crime novels
Criticism and interpretation
Demographic aspects
Detective fiction
Genre
Law enforcement
Literary criticism
Novels
Police
Political aspects
Politics
Race
School dropouts
Social aspects
Society
South African culture
South African literature
White supremacy
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Summary:[...]it can take visitors a while to get used to the fortress-like mentality in South Africa. Alternatively, for many black and "colored" (mixed-race) citizens, the police force would have to prove itself and gain legitimacy-a process still in effect and uncomfortably ineffective in most townships.3 With the end of apartheid, the police force began its "incredible transformation from being a weapon of an appalling fascist state to being the watchdog of one of the world's most progressive Constitutions," says South African crime novelist Andrew Brown (Coldsleep Lullaby, Solace, Refuge, Street Blues, and Devil's Harvest).4 Brown, an advocate and a police sergeant, notes that it is just about impossible to write a crime novel set in South Africa without exploring "the issue of race and the racial politics of the transforming South African Police Services."
ISSN:0196-3570
1945-8134
1945-8134
DOI:10.1353/wlt.2015.0071