Hofmeyr Isabel

This book explores the power of print and the politics of the book in South Africa from a range of disciplinary perspectives - historical, bibliographic, literary-critical, sociological, and cultural studies. The essays collected here, by leading international scholars, address a range of topics as varied as: the role of print cultures in contests over the nature of the colonial public sphere in the nineteenth century; orthography; iimbongi, orature and the canon; book-collecting and libraries; print and transnationalism; Indian Ocean cosmopolitanisms; books in war; how the fates of South African texts, locally and globally, have been affected by their material instantiations; photocomics and other ephemera; censorship, during and after apartheid; books about art and books as art; local academic publishing; and the challenge of 'book history' for literary and cultural criticism in contemporary South Africa.

South Africa’s future is increasingly tied up with that of India. While trade and investment between the two countries is intensifying, they share long-standing historical ties and have much in common: both countries are important players in the global South. As India emerges as a major economic power, the need to understand these links becomes ever more pressing. Can the two countries enter balanced forms of exchange or will India inevitably dominate? What forms of transnational political community between these two regions have yet to be researched and understood? South Africa and India addresses these questions and offers new approaches for researching transnational histories.