Textual Subjects in Motion: Letters, Literature and Print Medium in an Indian-South African Exchange (1928-1946)

Meg Samuelson

doi:10.5130/portal.v9i1.2573

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Published: Jun 6, 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/portal.v9i1.2573

Keywords:

Indian Ocean textual traffic, transnational print culture, MK Jeffreys, P Kodanda Rao, VS Sastri, Rabindranath Tagore, Rudyard Kipling

Meg Samuelson

Stellenbosch University

Abstract

This article traces an epistolary exchange between South Africa and India that was animated by the circulation of print media and literary texts. The exchange – between the South African archivist, poet and social historian MK Jeffreys and the Indian statesmen and scholars VS Srinivasa Sastri and P Kodanda Rao – is read as forming part of a larger web of personal and political relations and textual traffic that contributed to the production of Indian Ocean public spheres. Through engagement with this particular case study, the article seeks to contribute to the scholarly turn from explorations of relations between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ or along a North-South axis toward elaborating those engaging South-South connections within the Indian Ocean arena.

Issue

Vol 9 No 1 (2012): Indian Ocean Traffic

Section

Indian Ocean Traffic Special Issue January 2012 (Peer Reviewed)

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Author Biography

Meg Samuelson, Stellenbosch University

Meg Samuelson is currently an Associate Professor in the English Department at Stellenbosch University, and will be joining the University of Cape Town in 2013. She has published widely on Southern African literatures, including the book "Remembering the Nation, Dismembering Women? Stories of the South African Transition" (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007). Her current research engages Indian-South African connections and representations of the African Indian Ocean littoral. She is completing a co-authored book "South African Literatures in English: Land, Sea, City" (OUP) and launching projects titled "Oceanic Passages: Africa & the World" and "Surfer's Corner, Muizenberg: Reading a South African Beach".

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Meg Samuelson, Stellenbosch University