VIRTUAL ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Growing emphasis on the significance of urban space to the understanding and conceptualization of African experience in colonial and postcolonial periods has been evident in the works of African writers, literary scholars and urban theorists who have established that the city is not a mere container but a metaphor for the people’s colonial and postcolonial history, sociocultural, political and economic experiences in the last decades. Studies on African urban literature have been few and largely favour fictional texts, while neglecting or under-appreciating the richness of modern African poetry in African urban discourse. In this research, I focus on South African urban and argue that spatial phenomenon in modern African poetry is a metaphor for the memories of violence and resistance that attest to black struggles during apartheid regime in South Africa. In reference to Oswald Mtshali’s poetry collection, Sounds of a Cowhide Drum, I contend that South African poets have always treated urban space as an important and non-neutral subject in their poetic conceptualization of the horrific Apartheid experiences, while protesting for a cityness that elevates justice and equality among white and black urban dwellers. I analyze “A Brazier in the Street,” “White City Jabavu,” “A Ballad of Eloff Street,” “The Detribalized” and “Nightfall in Soweto” in Mtshali’s Sounds of a Cowhide Drum and conclude that to know the historical and cultural heritage that influence present South African urban is to understand the spatial commitment of Apartheid poets who see the city as a politicized entity that enhanced the marginalization of blacks.