First observations on the organization of Southern-Sotho literature as system

Abstract

Southern-Sotho literature constitutes an autonomous literary system with various intersystemic links with surrounding African and European literatures of the subcontinent. Various parties participate in its production, distribution, and consumption, and contribute to its evolution over nearly two centuries both in Lesotho and the RSA: storytellers, reciters, authors, reviewers, publishers, prescribing and screening committees, language boards, departments of education, students, readers, and listeners. Since inception its oral and written subsystems have been involved in an absorbing intrasystemic dialogue. During the past quarter-century both subsystems were substantially reinforced and extended by a ‘literature of the air’ through radio broadcasts. The Systemic Approach provides a framework according to which the evolution can be observed and reconstructed.