A South African Imaginary of Maoist China: The Curious Case of Dennis Brutus's China Poems (1975)

Abstract:This article examines Dennis Brutus's China Poems (1975). A South African poet and anti-apartheid activist, Brutus wrote the volume while visiting the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1973. Brutus imagines revolutionary China through a minimalist form, which was inspired by the traditional Chinese jueju (绝句), as well as Mao Zedong's own poetry. I argue that the volume entangles literary form and a materialist "concept of history" (Jameson) to symbolically recognize the PRC, resulting in a literary realpolitik designed to pressure the apartheid regime. This analysis also points to an Indian Ocean network of world literature by exploring a Cold War trajectory between South Africa and China.