Merrie Afrika!
Afrika! is an imaginary space, a "k" and an exclamation mark away from the processes, histories and conflicts that this, Adam Schwartzman's second collection, takes for its subject. It is a space that is at once estranging and, with its wily appropriations, home ground for the citizen of the English language. Above all, in projecting "the great out-there" into one fictive universe, Afrika! eschews personality and vigorously re-affirms community of descent, inheritance and association – as the source of authority, both poetic and political.
About the author
Adam Schwartzman was born in Johannesburg in 1973. At present he is an associate at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town and works in rural development. Carcanet publish his first two collections of poetry "The Good Life", "The Dirty Life and other stories" (1995) and "Merrie Afrika!" (1997).