“Being present where you are”: Guy Butler's South Africanism (with notes on Kirkwood and Coetzee) Guy Butler: Reassessing a South African Literary Life. By Chris Thurman. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010. 374pp.

Abstract

This review article explores the roots of Guy Butler's unique contribution to South African culture and society. Concurring with Chris Thurman's affirmation in his book, Guy Butler: Reassessing a South African Literary Life, that many of his critics have been ill-equipped to discern the central thrust of Butler's cultural life-work, the discussion links the many-faceted achievements of Butler's long career to that inner matrix of thought and feeling which drove his poetic and religious strivings, as well as his responses to the varied legacies of Western rationalism in social thought. To illustrate some of the misprisions which scar the work of his critics, notice is taken of dismissive and uncomprehending attacks mounted by commentators as different as Mike Kirkwood and J M Coetzee. The article concludes by affirming the continuing social relevance of Butler's contribution and legacy, expressed in his vigorous and enduring expression of a committed South Africanism.