SOPHIATOWN - THE VIEW FROM AFAR

Sophiatown, the legendary South African township destroyed in the late 1950s, is considered in terms of the interrelations between long-dist ance, transnational cultural influences and local circumstances. The i nfluence of foreign popular culture and fashion is sketched, and the f lowering of music and writing in the 1950s is related to local institu tions. Attention is also drawn to the successes of township culture in exile. The favourable reception of metropolitan high culture and popu lar culture is seen as resistance against the apartheid policy of cult ural separation, and Sophiatown writers are seen as forerunners of the current interest in cultural hybridity and creolization.