Reading and Bookselling Journeys from the ‘Old’ to the ‘New’ in South Africa

The reading and bookselling journeys of Gwynne Schrire, Lungisile Ntsebeza, and Andre Marais reveal how books journeyed in a period of dramatic political change. Contradictions and ironies characterise book circulation and bookselling in the transition from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ in South Africa and in one of its former Homelands. Robert Darnton’s idea of a ‘life cycle’ frames these journeys from separate and unequal ‘book worlds’ to fresh challenges. The life cycle itself journeys as a model. Gwynne continues to read and write; Lungisile returned to Cala in the Eastern Cape Province to resuscitate his countryside bookshop; and Andre relocated his radical bookshop in Cape Town. Successes and setbacks reveal lessons to build a better book world for a new multiracial South Africa. Time journeys change places.