Synopses & Reviews
“It is an inexplicable lapse on the part of literary scholars and critics,” writes Nadine Gordimer in her Introduction, “that Turbott Wolfe is not recognised as a pyrotechnic presence in the canon of renegade colonialist literature along with Conrad.” Indeed, William Plomer’s astonishing first novel, which first appeared in 1926, ignited a firestorm of controversy in his native South Africa. At the novel’s center is Turbott Wolfe, a British trader who opens a general store in Lembuland. He befriends many of his black customers but has less luck ingratiating himself with the bigoted whites who have lived in the area for generations. Eventually, Wolfe and his comrades embrace miscegenation as the key to Africa’s future—the Young Africa, where the races have blurred. Provocative and deeply questioning, Turbott Wolfe remains a powerful chronicle of the intimate human consequences of racism.
About the Author
William Plomer was born in South Africa to British parents in 1903. Educated in England, he briefly worked in a trading post in Zululand before settling in Japan. Plomer wrote
Turbott Wolfe when he was twenty-one and went on to publish novels—including
Sado and
Ali the Lion—short stories, poetry, and his autobiography
Double Lives. Plomer died in 1973.
Nadine Gordimer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, is the author of numerous novels, including The Conservationist, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People, and The Pickup, as well as nine volumes of stories. Her most recent book is the short-story collection Loot. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.