A Culture in Crisis – Reading in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Apartheid should be blamed for the state of literature in indigenous South Africa languages. It should blamed for the illiteracy levels among the adult population, and in the class structure that still sees the majority of the people trapped in poverty. The country could learn from the likes of Cuba, which managed to raise the standard of reading and wiped out illiteracy in a few years, despite having limited resources. Our post-1994 period is characterised by a number of policy choices that impacted negatively on the development of a culture of reading