Main content

The South African Bloomsberries

An exploration of connections between three writers of a magazine called Voorslag or Whiplash and the Woolfs. And why a founder of the ANC presents us with a literary what if...

Race relations aren't always thought of as being linked with the experimental writing and art promoted by the Bloomsbury set in 1920s Britain but New Generation Thinker Jade Munslow Ong, from the University of Salford, argues that without a group of South African authors who came to Britain we might not have Virginia Woolf's Orlando. But Roy Campbell, William Plomer and Laurens Van der Post weren't the only writers from that country with a Bloomsbury connection. A founder of the Native National Congress - later the ANC - was also hard at work on a novel which depicted an interracial friendship.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by 麻豆社 Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into essays, features and discussions. You can find a collection featuring their insights on the Free Thinking programme page, available on 麻豆社 Sounds and to download as the Arts and Ideas podcast.
You can hear more from Jade in discussions called Modernism around the World and South African writing.

Available now

14 minutes

Broadcast

  • Mon 3 Apr 2023 22:45

Featured in...

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Download The Essay

Download The Essay

Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.

Podcast