Anglophone and Afrikaans literary adaptations of |xam Bushman folklore: An annotated bibliography of texts in conversation with the Bleek and Lloyd archive

Abstract

Against the backdrop of calls for the Africanisation and decolonisation of literary studies in South African higher education, an annotated bibliography of adaptations of material from the Bleek and Lloyd archive of |xam folklore is presented as a critical index of the existing corpus of creative texts with this oral tradition as foundation. The archive represents one of the largest and most influential of its kind, with adaptations into English and Afrikaans being particularly popular in South African literature over the past century. Limited references to texts written in English by authors outside of South Africa, including from Britain and New Zealand, are included as well. The texts are discussed by genre: poetry, play, prose, creative non-fiction, and folkloric and children’s literature. Beyond providing a brief description of these texts, academic scholarship that has been undertaken in relation to the specific adaptations is referenced as well, providing a succinct point of departure for scholars interested in this tradition of writing and the critique that has taken shape around it.
Contribution: This article provides the first comprehensive overview of Anglophone and Afrikaans literary texts that have been created in conversation with the Bleek and Lloyd archive of |xam Bushman folklore. In addition to discussions of the texts, available secondary sources are listed as reference points for future scholarship.