ABSTRACT
South Africa boasts an extensive coastline that stretches over 2,800 kilometres and is alternately caressed and pounded by two oceans, which have produced a chain of golden sandy beaches along its shores. Yet compared to other sites, the beach does not feature very prominently in South African literary culture and is even less visible in literary criticism. 2 The farm, the bushveld and the arid karoo; city, town and village: all have accrued layers of inscription while the beach sits almost silent at the edge of the South African literary and critical imagination. 3 Its relative muteness is at least in part dictated by the lack of space accorded to levity and the ludic in South African letters, burdened as they have been with seeking to bear the weight of the experiences of colonial dispossession and apartheid oppression and of representing struggle and strife.
