Old Transvaal Stories | Short Stories & Fiction Anthologies

Herman Charles Bosman

Justly famous for his ‘Oom Schalk Lourens’ and ‘Voorkamer’ sequences – in which characters are used to narrate the stories – Bosman is equally impressive when he becomes personally involved as a narrator. In Old Transvaal Stories Bosman retells old tales and, in the process, reflects wittily and self-ironically on the art of storytelling. Never content to leave the stories as he found them, he polishes and embellishes – and invariably gives each tale a surprising turn. The stories include:

■Old Transvaal story
■The clay-pit
■The murderess
■A tale writ in water
■The heart of a woman
■New elder
■Shy young man
■Night on the veld