Jayapraga Reddy (1947–1996) was an Indian South African writer of short stories, plays, and a memoir.
Jayapraga Reddy | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1947 Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa |
| Died | 1996 (aged 48–49) Durban |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short stories, plays, autobiography |
| Notable works | The Web of Persuasion On the Fringe of Dreamtime and Other Stories The Unbending Reed |
Reddy was born in Durban in 1947, where she would live her whole life.[1] Reddy was affected by muscular dystrophy, as were two of her brothers, and she used a wheelchair for most of her life.[1][2]
Reddy published her first story, "The Lost Tube of Toothpaste", when she was only twelve years old.[1] She enjoyed unusual success both domestically and internationally as an Indian woman during apartheid:[3] in 1975 her stories "The Love Beads" and "The Stricken Land" were broadcast on the BBC and in the 1980s several more of her stories were published in Staffrider and her play, The Web of Persuasion, was produced by SABC.[1] Her 1987 short story collection, On the Fringe of Dreamtime and Other Stories, was one of only a handful of books by South African women of colour published in that decade.[3][4] Many of Reddy's stories explore themes of race, gender, family and disability.[1]
Reddy composed an autobiography, titled The Unbending Reed, which she submitted to a number of publishers.[1] The book was still unpublished when she died in 1996.[1][2]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g Govinden, Betty (2000). "Space and Identity in Jayapraga Reddy's Unpublished Autobiography, The Unbending Reed and her On the Fringe of Dreamtime and Other Stories". Alternation. 7 (1): 178–200.
- ^ a b Rastogi, Pallavi (2008). Afrindian Fictions: Diaspora, Race, and National Desire in South Africa (PDF). The Ohio State University Press. p. 244. ISBN 978-08142-0319-4.
- ^ a b Driver, Dorothy (Winter 1996). "Transformation through Art: Writing, Representation, and Subjectivity in Recent South African Fiction". World Literature Today. 70 (1): 45–52. doi:10.2307/40151851. JSTOR 40151851.
- ^ Fainman-Frenkel, Ronit (2006). "Reconsidering Late-Apartheid Literature: The Short Stories of Agnus Sam and Jayapraga Reddy". English Studies in Africa. 49 (2): 67–82. doi:10.1080/00138390608691355. S2CID 162254398.