Suid-Afrikaanse Instituut (SAI)

The South African Institute (SAI) is a central point of information about South Africa. The institute manages the biggest extensive collection about South Africa in the Netherlands. The SAI organizes literary events with writers and poets, meetings for Dutch and South African people. The SAI installed the special professorial chair African Language and Literature. The SAI is also a publisher of greater academic books about South Africa.

Professorial chair South African Literature

To promote the knowledge of South African literature, languages and history in the Netherlands, a special professorial chair was established in 1933. This was discontinued in the eighties due to political pressure. The SAI reinstated the chair at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in 2001. Dr. Ena Jansen has since then been the SAI professor of South African literature. During the second semester of 2011/2012 (Feb.-June) her lecture series for mainly UvA and VU students will be on the relation between literature and history.

Publications

The SAI acts as a publisher of the SAI publication series. This series puts special emphasis on scholarly publications relating to South Africa. However, the most popular publication in the series is the publication language guide 'Afrikaans op reis' which is a language guide for Dutch tourists travelling to South Africa. For more publications check our webshop.

Library

For several decades the SAI manages a library with a uniqe, entirely dedicated to South Africa specificied collection and the biggest variety of South African literature in Europe. Researchers, teachers and students, but also more commonly interested readers are using the SAI library. The biggest part of the collection is in Afrikaans, English or Dutch.