Abstract:
Despite many efforts to publish comprehensive literary histories of South or Southern Africa in recent years, few studies exist in
which a thorough comparative study is undertaken between two or more South African literatures. This article wants to provide
a practical example of such a study by comparing the urbanisation of Afrikaners in Afrikaans literature with that of black people
as seen in English and Zulu literature. The statement made by Ampie Coetzee that comparative studies should take place within
the framework of discursive formations is one of the fundamental starting points of this study. Maaike Meijer’s concept of the
“cultural text” is further employed as a theoretical instrument. The identification of repeating sets of representation is central to
the demarcation of a “cultural text about urbanisation” in Afrikaans, English and Zulu literature respectively. The cultural text
forms the basis from which a valid comparative study can be embarked upon, and the results of the research have important
implications for further comparative studies but also literary historiography.
