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Radio Soundings
South Africa and the Black Modern

Maps an apartheid-era Zulu Radio station as it grew to become one of the largest stations in Africa, countering censorship and propaganda.

Liz Gunner (Author)

9781108470643, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 January 2019

242 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.5 cm, 0.53 kg

'… Gunner's investigation of the BBC archives as well as deep knowledge of Zulu sources living and passed away is second to none and gives her account of radio and the black modern a personal voice as well as the gravity of history.' Loren Kruger, Research in African Literatures

Zulu Radio in South Africa is one of the most far-reaching and influential media in the region, currently attracting around 6.67 million listeners daily. While the public and political role of radio is well-established, what is less understood is how it has shaped culture by allowing listeners to negotiate modern identities and fast-changing lifestyles. Liz Gunner explores how understandings of the self, family, and social roles were shaped through this medium of voice and mediated sound. Radio was the unseen literature of the auditory, the drama of the airwaves, and thus became a conduit for many talents squeezed aside by apartheid repression. Besides Winnie Mahlangu and K. E. Masinga, among other talents, the exiles Lewis Nkosi and Bloke Modisane made a network of identities and conversations which stretched from the heart of Harlem to the American South, drawing together the threads of activism and creativity from both Black America and the African continent at a critical moment of late empire.

Introduction: radio, the SABC and the politics of culture
Part I. Sound and 'Migration': 1. K. E. Masinga, Zulu Radio and the politics of 'migrant' aurality
2. Remembering the past, making the present: the radio worlds of Alexius Buthelezi 1961–1978
Part II. Distance and Intimacy: 3. Exile: Bloke Modisane and the BBC 1959–1987
4. 'Africa on the rise': the early 1960s, and the radio Voice of Lewis Nkosi
Part III. Drama, Language, and Daily Life: 5. Untidy boundaries, restless identities: Zulu serial drama in the 1970s
6. Radio drama in the time of violence: Yiz' Uvalo (In Spite of Fear) December 1986–May 1987
7. 'Ikusasa Lethu' (Our Tomorrow): the 'glorious decade'? Radio drama of the 1990s
8. Finding a centre
Conclusion: dances of power
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH], African history [HBJH], General & world history [HBG], History [HB]

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