Jim comes to Jo’burg

A (slightly denigrating) reference to a recurring theme in South African novels, plays and films dealing with the black experience. It derives from an early film of that name (***** by ****), but has its most compelling example the canonical novel Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (which itself has seen three film versions made, plus a number of dramatized versions, over the past 50 years). In brief it follows the experiences (usually negative) of a rural character who comes to the city, and often deals with the tension between rural and urban life, customs and mores. In theatre it is a constant recurring theme, from the early works of Dhlomo and others, to the musicals of the sixties and even the protest theatre of the 1970’s and 1980’s. It is of course a specific example of the more general theme of urbanization, which is equally prominent in white South African writing, and especially Afrikaans writing. (See for example the famous novels about a character named Ampie by Jochem van Bruggen, which were also dramatized.)

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