Map of South Africa -- Countries of South Africa -- A Note on Racial Terminology, Orthography and Conventions -- Introduction Writing Literary History in Southern Africa -- Pt. 1. Oral Tradition: A Usable Past. Ch. 1. Bushman (San) Songs and Stories. Ch. 2. African (Bantu) Songs, Stories, Praises -- Pt. 2. Writing of European Settlement: South Africa 1652-1910. Ch. 1. Images of Africa, 1652-1820. Ch. 2. The Story of Frontier, 1820s-1870s. Ch. 3. Anglicisation and the Afrikaans Language Movements, 1875-1930. Ch. 4. The Story of the Colony Fiction, 1880- -- Pt. 3. African or Colonial Literature: 1880s to 1960s. Ch. 1. The Colonial Past in the Independent State. Ch. 2. Belonging and Belief in South Africa, 1910-1948. Europe and Africa. Ch. 3. Belonging and Belief in South Africa, 1910-1948. Africa and Europe. Ch. 4. Identity and the Apartheid State, 1948-1970 -- Pt. 4. Commissioned by the Nation, Commissioned by the Society. Independence, Post-Independence.

Ch. 1. Malawi and Zambia: The Writer in the One-party State. Ch. 2. Angola and Mozambique. National Ideals and Pragmatic Realities. Ch. 3. Zimbabwe: the Unified Nation or the Functioning Society? Ch. 4. Namibia: Making a Literature -- Pt. 5. Writing in the Interregnum: South Africa, 1970-1995. Ch. 1. Black Consciousness and White Africans. Ch. 2. The Black Theatre Model. Towards an Aesthetic of South African Theatre. Ch. 3. The Story of Community: A Resilient Tradition. Ch. 4. The Truth of Fiction and the Fiction of Truth: Writing Novels in the Interregnum. Ch. 5. The State of Emergency, the New Southern Africa -- Pt. 6. Further References.