Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores several dimensions of Zoe Wicomb's translocal writing, as she traces the echoes of these voices across, and between, South Africa and Scotland. Enriched by one of Wicomb's own story-essays, a suite of photographs that provided the inspiration for one of her novels and an interview with her about her work, Zoe Wicomb and the Translocal both examines and celebrates the remarkable achievement of a major writer of our time. Frieda Shenton, shares some of Wicomb's personal history, a childhood in a remote village in Namaqualand, attendance at a high school in Cape Town, and a degree at the University of the Western Cape, designated for coloured students. Shanon registers the injustices of apartheid and the complexities of racial stratification not as the explicit impositions of political ideology but as daily, practical impediments to her ambitions and relationships.