In Township Tonight: South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre [Hardcover]

David B. Coplan (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: Longman Group United Kingdom (June 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582644011
• ISBN-13: 978-0582644014
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,965,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dances not Dirges: Culture under Apartheid, April 1, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: In Township Tonight: South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre (Paperback)

In 1986, Paul Simon's album, "Graceland" focused international attention on the music and people of South Africa. The music was not the mournful dirges of apartheid
victims but rather the vibrant sounds of a cultural affirmation. Anyone interested the people and culture
behind the "Graceland" sound need look no further than David Coplan's "In Township Tonight!"

Those who might shy away from an academic work, for fear of encountering dry-as-sawdust pedantic prose, will be pleasantly surprised. Coplan's writing is clear and unencumbered. Coplan provides a brief survey of the dynamics of Black South African culture in the nineteenth century. This serves a backdrop to the book's primary focus, Black music and culture in urban South Africa during the twentieth
century.

Coplan's account is intersting and exciting, sad yet homorous. Through rigorous research and passion for his subject Coplan provides the reader with a compelling look at one of the most unusual societies of the twentieth century, apartheid South Africa. The reader is taken beyond the simplistic South Africa of media sound bites to a world of complex characters where music is part of life and where, in the background one hears the irrepresible peep of a penny whistle.