A Love Letter to South Africa: Place by Justin Fox

By Jennifer du Plessis

This place is home, and one’s attachment to the first places one learns to love, one’s sacred places, is unshakeable. From Odysseus to the present day, homecoming is synonymous with peace and healing.

Justin Fox, Place

In a contemporary South Africa marked by political corruption, crime and economic challenges, place has lost meaning for many South Africans. Not only has a large number elected to immigrate to other countries, but those of us that remain reminisce over the “good old days,” expressing disdain over the decline of safety and basic services over the last thirty years of democracy.

Despite this state of affairs, and perhaps because of it, Justin Fox embarks on a journey to rediscover the significance of place. In this regard, he writes of the connection between South Africans and our land, of our stories that are rooted therein. With this as motivation, Fox thoughtfully sojourns across South Africa’s natural landscapes using famous South African literary figures such as Eugene Marais and J.M. Coetzee, as well as their seminal texts as guides.

Place is a captivating and poignant travelogue reminiscent of a pilgrimage. Beginning with Olive Schreiner’s African Farm which was published in 1883 and ending with Steven Watson’s published writings in 1995, Fox’s literary journey spans roughly a century of prolific writers. Throughout, Fox tells of his detailed research of the stories beyond the stories, from library searches and old book shops to sending personal emails to the writers themselves (specifically J.M. Coetzee and Stephen Watson). In his thoroughness, Fox foregrounds the writer and their importance in portraying place.

Not only does Fox trace the footsteps of each writer through the different South African regions – such as Herman Charles Bosman’s Groot Marico and Sir Percy Fitzpatrick’s Barberton, Pilgrim’s Rest and Lydenburg – but he also follows the adventures of their literary characters: the stories of Ooom Schalk Lourens and Jock of the Bushveld become Fox’s lived experience. However, between these accounts, Fox weaves chapters that foreground the fauna and flora represented in other literary works such as Dalene Matthee’s Circles in a Forest and Stephen Watson’s A Writer’s Diary. To experience these places, Fox spends a night in the Knysna forest and hikes through the Cederburg, thereby unearthing the real landscapes from the literary ones. To enrich his journey further, Fox also meets with different nature experts, literary enthusiasts and other knowledgeable individuals who, along with the texts, guide him through the vast South African landscapes. Overall, throughout the travelogue, Fox captures the diversity of people and places in South Africa.

Important to Fox’s accounts in the travelogue is their chronological presentation. Although each chapter is a self-contained story comprising each author’s life and their influential text(s), this chronology lends a historical narrative to the travelogue. This thereby embeds a historical overview of South Africa’s political dynamics through the natural landscapes of the country, and the political significance of land that spans the various literary texts becomes a key focus. Fox thus casts a contemporary lens over South Africa’s extensive history through events captured in the literary texts, from the South African war to the gold rush and the fight for equality in apartheid. By locating them within place, Fox renews their significance.

Justin Fox

As such, these embedded historical contexts cumulate into a social commentary on the changes, both good and bad, that natural South African landscapes have undergone. In fact, in the final chapter, he expresses criticism over the current status quo while also rebuking colonial events that have led South Africa thereto. Place is currently under threat; crime and potential landgrabs provide a sense of dis-placement to many South Africans, thereby motivating the present mass-exodus from the country.

To stay or not to stay – that is the question that plagues Fox, he ultimately admits. Because there is hope. The destruction of place is not entirely imminent. In fact, some land, such as the Knysna forest and the Cederburg, is protected under conservation laws. Furthermore, many of the places captured within the literature that guides Fox’s journey are still intact, still accessible, and still sublime. The bond that South Africans have with place is seemingly inseverable.

The beauty of this travelogue lies in the love it rekindles for this land that we call home. Through a new perspective on South African nature, it achieves the unimaginable: it reawakens South African pride.

In celebrating a century of South African literature, Place is truly a love letter to South Africa.

Ms. Jennifer du Plessis is an emerging academic and lecturer at the University of South Africa. Her main research interests lie in identity studies and, more specifically, feminism, gender studies, postcolonialism and linguistics. Having graduated cum laude in her BA Honours in Theory of Literature in 2025, she is now completing her Master’s Degree in the same discipline, focusing on South African theatre.

Furthermore, she has, over the last two years, participated in conferences on hate speech and linguistics and boasts a short story publication in the UNISA anthology titled “Wistfulness of Time” (2022).