SMID, or Transvaal Episode

Scope and Content

The series contains a proposed outline and synoposis of the film and two draft screenplays.

Administrative / Biographical History

During the 1980s Burgess adapted Harry Bloom's first novel, Episode (1956) - later retitled Transvaal Episode (1956) - for film. Bloom's novel is an account of an uprising in the fictional township of Nelstroom in South Africa in the aftermath of the 1952-1953 African National Congress defiance campaign. It was originally banned by the South African government for being dangerous to the safety of the apartheid state, but went on to win the British Authors' Club Prize for the best novel of 1956. The story's main characters are Hendrik Du Toit, the newly arrived manager of a segregated ghetto, and Walter Mabaso, a freedom fighter who comes to Nelstroom.

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