Oorgange en voortgange is 'n bundel oorspronklike navorsingsartikels saamgestel as huldiging van prof. Heinrich Ohlhoff. Hy was sedert 1966 in verskeie hoedanighede verbonde aan die Universiteit van Pretoria. Hy is 'n gerekende kenner van die Afrikaanse poësie, maar ook ewe tuis op die terreine van die Afrikaanse taalkunde, Algemene Literatuurwetenskap, Goties en Kultuurteorie. As filoloog het sy navorsing gekonsentreer op Middeleeuse Europese kultuur, Renaissance studie en sewentiende-eeuse Nederlandse letterkunde. Hy is op al hierdie vakterreine 'n wandelende ensiklopedie.

Elkeen van die bydraers tot die bundel het 'n persoonlike verhouding met Heinrich Ohlhoff, as voormalige studente of vakkollegas. Van sy oudstudente het hom die eerste keer in hul voorgraadse klasse meegemaak, sommige het hom later as begeleier vir hul nagraadse studie gekies, in sigself klinkende getuienis van hul vertroue. Die studies wat hier opgeneem is, handel oor die Middeleeuse Nederlandse letterkunde, die Afrikaanse biografie, Afrikaanse mondelinge oordrag, akademiese geletterdheid, die leksikologie en veral die Afrikaanse prosa en poësie.

Hierdie vakverskeidenheid is toepaslik omdat Heinrich Ohlhoff op al hierdie terreine met gemak kan saampraat.

Peter Clarke and James Matthews were born within days of each other. Clarke on 2 June 1929 in a stone cottage overlooking False Bay. Matthews eight days earlier, across Table Mountain, in a Bo-Kaap tenement building facing the city bowl. These two boys, from similar backgrounds, grew into young men before they met and formed a friendship that would last a lifetime. They became 'almost more than brothers'. Yet they are complete opposites: Clarke is charecterized by his dignified reserve and meticulous order, Mattthews by his forthrighteness and bohemian disorder. Over a period of more than forty years both became well known in their respective disciplines--Clarke became a poet, short-story writer and primarily a painter; Matthews sharted out writing short stories and novels, before establishing himself as the dispatcher of raging Black Consciousness poetry. This book is a tribute to two fiercely independent artists. It is liberally illustrated with the work of both artists in b/w and color photographs.

Afrikaans developed when slaves in the Cape adapted Dutch – the language of the rulers – for their own use. Many years later Afrikaans was hijacked by some white Afrikaners as ‘their language’, but Davids proved beyond doubt that it was the descendants of the slaves, not their masters, who first wrote Afrikaans.

The focus of this book is the Arabic-Afrikaans literary tradition of the Cape Muslim community. It looks at the emergence of this tradition at the Cape of Good Hope, as well as the social vehicles through which it emerged and through which it was in use. This is done through an examination of the literature, in the form of manuscripts and publications, it generated during the first hundred years of its existence.

Importantly, the book looks at the development of the distinctive Arabic alphabet that local Arabic-Afrikaans authors used to convey accurately this community’s mother tongue.

The history of the Afrikaans language is still very little understood and discussed, and this book illuminates the extraordinary story of its beginnings, with slaves and colonisers, with Xam!, Indonesians, Malaysians, Turks and imams of all stripes. It’s a wonderfully rich story told in detail here, with verve and a keen ear for story.

Jacana Media is delighted to make available again a classic work of South African hidden history, that of the Arabic Afrikaans literary tradition. Previously published in 2010 as The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims from 1815 to 1915, this edition carries a new introduction by Heinrich Willemse.