Adult Agendas in Publishing South African Folktales for Children

Translations of indigenous folktales form a large proportion of South African children’s books. The reasons why they were published can be compared with the situation in Canada and Australia, where far fewer folktales were published until the 1970s. At first those who published them were influenced by Social Darwinism, and later they played a role in promoting the ideology of apartheid, but they were mainly the product of white paternalism. In South Africa and Australia they rivalled and outlasted the importation of whimsical European fairy tale elements. Today they are valued for sharing with all South African children indigenous culture, which has vanished or is disappearing in urban society.