The contributions to this issue of Current Writing remind us of the flexibility of key terms in the title of the journal: current; writing; text; and reception. The term writing refers both to texts under consideration and the critical reception of the texts; ‘text’ can range from oral to written expression and cover recently published work as well as re-interpretations of earlier work.
The focus of this issue is on the current reception of earlier texts, beginning with the oral voice and moving, more or less chronologically, from the 1930s to the new millennium. We are reminded of a neglected ‘literary/political moment’ of the periodical press from the 1930s to the 1960s. Is the New Black Poetry of the Seventies still current, 50 years on? The late Sheila Roberts's achievement is re-assessed. What currency has JM Coetzee's The Master of Petersburg, a novel which, published in the same year as South Africa's first democratic election (1994), is set in late nineteenth-century Tsarist Russia? A consideration of Antjie Krog, being Black, precedes a consideration of Zoë Wicomb, playing for white, while the final contribution is a review on a study of novels from Botswana.
Current Writing 29(1), 2017, is closed to contributions; 29(2), edited by Cheryl Stobie, will be a ‘theme’ issue. (See the notice at the end of this issue of Current Writing.)