Verdict: carrot
The post-apartheid period has seen Fugard exercise a greater sense of freedom to follow what one might describe as a whimsical, or philosophical and personal bent, than in the iron-barred apartheid years. This is certainly true of Hummingbird, which by Fugardian standards of length, intensity and dialogic freight is a mere whimsy of a play; it is, indeed, a wistful one-act meditation on the wonders of the human imagination, without confronting the dictatorial intolerance of the “real world.” Such speculative content, bodied forth in a grandfatherly dialogue between Oupa and his grandson Boba about Plato’s allegory of the cave in The Republic, would in the South African struggle years of littérature engagée have been met with raised eyebrows and even a measure of disapproval in some circles. Thankfully, times and contexts have changed.
Book Details
- The Shadow of the Hummingbird by Athol Fugard
EAN: 9780798169936
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