This book by Judith Inggs will be invaluable to educators and librarians wishing to read contemporary young adult literature with high school students. She has selected for discussion some of the most powerful English young adult fiction set in South Africa since apartheid started to crumble. Thematically arranged chapters begin chronologically with the experiences of young people in the unstable 70s and 80s and follow them through the changing political and social years to the present. The novels shift in narrative technique and focus, depicting teenagers finding themselves in a rapidly changing geographical and social environment. From intensely realist fiction Inggs moves on to fantasy, horror and dystopian genres, which have opened up new ways of exploring identity in modern South Africa.
The author’s analyses of the books are guided by insights drawn from current work on young adult fiction by international scholars and critics, and are written in such a way that they are accessible not only to readers in South Africa but internationally. The lives of young South Africans have much in common with their counterparts around the world, but the extraordinary history of modern South Africa gives the novels some unusual elements, particularly the breakdown of racial barriers and the consequent mixing of cultures.
Elwyn Jenkins, University of South Africa
