Uys Krige and the South African afterlife of Fernando Pessoa

• Main Author: Helgesson, Stefan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brown University 2015-10-01
• Series: Pessoa Plural
• Subjects: Jennings, H. D. (Hubert Dudley); Campbell, Roy1901-1957; Guibert, Armand1906-1990; Krige, Uys1910-1987; República mundial das letras; World republic of letters
• Online Access: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:757384/PDF/

Three letters to Hubert Jennings – two of them from the Afrikaans poet Uys Krige, one from the French poet Armand Guibert – prompt a reconsideration of the South African reception of Fernando Pessoa. Although this reception was and is clearly limited, Krige emerges here as a key individual connecting Jennings, Guibert, Roy Campbell and – by extension – Fernando Pessoa in a transnational literary network structured according to the logic of what Pascale Casonova has called "the world republic of letters" (La République Mondiale des Lettres). As such, however, this historical network has limited purchase on the contemporary concerns of South African literature. The letters alert us, thereby, not just to the inherent transnationalism of South African literature, but also to largely forgotten and, to some extent, compromised aspects of South African literary history.