South African Authors

We have just reached a milestone in that there are now 1001 South African authors listed in CK. I am sure Africansky1 and Manlio_p can add a few more. I did add the nationality of the author to many of their recently added books but in some cases I was not that sure so I left it out.

Great to hear about the milestone. I try to always add the nationality of authors, so I'm glad to hear that others also go to the trouble.

Thanks for your help Bergs47 - its great to add knowledge to and polish up the database.

Please enlighten this member. What is CK?

Kath

For every book and author you will see an area that one can enter common knowledge (CK). So for authors you canenter date of birth, educucation nationality etc. For each book there are different items such Awards and honors, Important places, characters etc.

Anyway I like to enter the information and one can see how many they have entered under Zeitgeist.

I have been working on getting as many South African authors listed and have often used your books as a source. You may want to go to the book or author and enter some information (CK).

Thanks... ok I'll also try to help with this. At the moment I am trying to enter up cover images. I have about 3 600+ to go! funnily the Africana books are actually well covered by auction sites and one can find covers very easily...particularly where it is not such a rare book and comes on to the market. Had any good buys of late?

How do you work out the number of South African authors on Librarything? I have tags for the area in which a book is set but not for the nationality of the writer - any suggestions on what to use? I'm sure there are more than 100 South African writers in my list.

I wonder if collectively we couLd be more systematic about approaches to tagging as I know I am very random. What for example would be our criteria for defining a SA author ... Born in SA, or writing about SA or Both ?

A South African citizen? Would Coetzee be regarded as still being a South African writer? What about Zimbabweans and Namibeans? Wilbur Smith? Or people who lived and wrote here for a while before returning home, like Tom Sharpe? Or South Africans who write books which are set in different countries with no bearing whatsoever on SA?

I think an S A author can come through in different ways - lived in S A, wrote about S Africa or maybe extend that to Southern Africa.....I have just been reading Pauline Smith again and she was someone who spent the first 13 years of her life here, then lived in England for the rest of her life though visited S A many times but I still regard her as a quintessential SA writer as she captures the Karoo character and life of late 19th and early 20th c so well. I definitely think Coetzee is a S A writer - we need all the Nobel kudos we can garner. Christopher Hope is an S A writer though lives in France now. I am sure there are many others.

Opps some how I put my own thread on ignore. Its simple really in CK its generally thought that the nationality of the writer is what passport they hold... however you may also enter country for map. Here is one of my posts on Nationalties in general:

Here is my tuppence worth.
I have been doing a large amount of CK as regards 19th century scientists. Many are born pre 1871, the date of German Unification, thus although born in what we know today as Germany, it may be Bavaria or Prussia. However as they grew older they may have become Germans. I tend to put Germany as nationality although under birth place, the city should in fact not be in Germany as it never existed. Same goes for Italy. Although looking at Birthplace you rarely get the place name as just Papal States or Kingdom of Naples.

Nationality is rather complex. Many British citizens emigrated to the Empire and never took out the citizenship of their adopted countries. I know this as a fact as I live in South Africa and know many Brits who refused to give up their citizenship. So I have found a few palaeontologists that lived in South Africa that are for all intents and purposes South African but consider themselves British.
The USA is a different kettle of fish. Many new USA immigrants want US citizenship as soon as it becomes available and take it up. Should their nationality be USA or only country for map be USA?

Interesting responses here.... Ok... Time for wishing everyone a happy and restful holiday season and let's hope we can be more active in the new year. if you were asked... And indeed I am asking to feed into the Folio Society group... Which SA books Would you wish to see republished and given FS gorgeous treatment . I have listed a few under the FS thread .. Alan Paton, Olive Schriener, Percy Fitzpatrick, Sol Plaatje, early Nadine Gordimer, Eskia Mphalalele(sp?) and Ivan Valdislavic . any further ideas... I think that FS people read the group posts and there are some good discussions. worth following.

Story of an African Farm by Olive Schriener
Soul of the White Ant by Eugene Marais
Commando: a Boer Journal of the Boer War by Deneys Reitz
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Jock of the Bushveld by Percy Fitzpatrick
Somthing by Herman Charles Bosman
Just a few suggestions off the top of my head - classics, nothing new.