Watson, Stephen 1953-

views updated

WATSON, Stephen 1953-

PERSONAL: Born 1953, in Cape Town, South Africa. Education: Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cape Town, South Africa. Agent—c/o Author Mail, New Africa Books, 99 Garfield Road, Claremont 7700; or P.O. Box 23408, Claremont 7735, South Africa; fax: (021) 674 3358. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Poet, writer, critic, and teacher. University of Cape Town, Department of English, South Africa, professor of English.

WRITINGS:

Poems 1977-1982, Bateleur Press (Johannesburg, South Africa, 1982.

In This City: Poems, David Philip (Cape Town, South Africa), 1986.

Sydney Clouts and the Limits of Romanticism, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (Cape Town, South Africa), 1986.

Cape Town Days, and Other Poems, Cecil Skotnes & Clarke's Bookshop (Cape Town, South Africa), 1989.

Selected Essays, 1980-1990, Carrefour Press (Cape Town, South Africa), 1990.

Return of the Moon: Versions from the Xam, Carrefour Press (Cape Town, South Africa), 1991, revised edition, published as Song of the Broken String: After the /Xam Bushmen: Poems from a Lost Oral Tradition, Sheep Meadow Press (Riverdale-on-Hudson, NY), 1996.

(Editor) Guy Butler, Essays and Lectures, 1949-1991, David Philip (Cape Town, South Africa), 1994.

(Editor) Patrick Cullinan, Selected Poems, 1961-1994, illustrations by Judith Mason, Snailpress (Plunstead, South Africa), 1994.

Presence of the Earth: New Poems, D. Philip (Cape Town, South Africa), 1995.

(Editor, with Graham Huggan) Critical Perspectives on J. M. Coetzee, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

A Writer's Diary, Queillerie Publishers (Cape Town, South Africa), 1997.

The Other City: Selected Poems, 1977-1999, D. Philip (Cape Town, South Africa), 2000.

Contributor to Sound from the Thinking Strings: A Visual, Literary, Archeological, and Historical Interpretation of the Finals Years of Xam Life, edited and etchings by Pippa Skotnes, translated by W. H. I. Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, Axeage Private Press (Cape Town, South Africa), 1991. Song of the Broken String: After the Xam Bushmen, the revised version of Return of the Moon: Versions from the Xam, has been published in French.

SIDELIGHTS: A teacher in the English Department at the University of Cape Town, Stephen Watson has written several volumes of poetry, as well as numerous critical essays and a book about his experiences as a writer. In the collection Selected Essays: 1980-1990, Watson focuses primarily on South African poetry. Writing in World Literature Today, reviewer Reed Way Dasenbrock said he was "somewhat confused" about Watson's feelings about contemporary South African English poetry. He also called Watson an "intelligent and careful reader of poetry" and noted that the collection of essays "provide a helpful guide to the contemporary South African poetic situation." Watson is also the author of Writer's Diary, in which he explores his own "pre-occupations" as a writer.

Watson, however, is primarily noted for his poetry and has been called Cape Town's definitive poet. Watson's 2000 collection of poems titled The Other City contains both new poems and previously published poems from five earlier volumes of poetry, some of which Watson revised. Writing in the Time Literary Supplement, Peter Reading called the collection a "soundly-produced edition" and noted, "The five sections of this book all chronicle, in one way or another, the demise of individuals, eras, regions and notions."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

English in Africa, May, 1998, Dirk Klopper, "On the Edge of Darkness: Stephen Watson and the Return of the Romantic Imagination," pp. 87-98.

Research in African Literatures, spring, 1992, Patrick Cullinan, review of Return of the Moon: Versions from the Xam, pp. 393-394; winter, 1996, Dominic Head, review of Critical Perspective on J. M. Coetzee, pp. 205-207.

Times Literary Supplement, July 27, 2001, Peter Reading, review of The Other City, p. 23.

World Literature Today, summer, 1991, Reed Way Basenbrock, review of Selected Essays 1980-1990, p. 537.