South African Literature

Lueen Conning explores in her play A Coloured Place (henceforth ACP), the destructive effects of the Apartheid system in South Africa on South African post-Apartheid women. This paper gives a critical, contextual analysis of ACP (1998) by Lueen Conning. It investigates the feminist elements that are found in the play to show how that authoritarian system affected their lives even after its fall, especially colored women and the need to raise awareness of its effects. The colored protagonist of the takes a key role in revealing the suffering of a hybrid females individuals in a post-Apartheid South African society and the potential consequences of that hybrid identity. This paper also examines the autobiographical elements that are found in the play. Therefore, it likewise shows how female playwrights like Lueen Conning (Malika Ndlovu) are trying to lead the social change in the post-Apartheid society through portrayal of heroines' abuse and raising awareness of women's problems in that racist oppressive society. They are successful to show the failure of the system although they are becoming lonely outsiders by that system. The context of the study and the literature review have paved the way by providing the theoretical basis for the analysis of the play. Thus, this short study sheds the light on how Apartheid South Africa state affects the social change, but it is similarly demonstrating the resistance to that abusive world of that era.

The decade of 1980’s witnessed a cross-fertilization between humanities and psychology resulting in the emergence, in the Western scholarship, of a vigorous and interdisciplinary area of trauma studies. Its foundation has been firmly established across multiple disciplines and fields ranging from American studies, history, and psychoanalysis to cultural studies, sociology and anthropology. Cathy Caruth’s Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History and Kali Tal’s Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma secured for trauma studies in literary criticism a significant attention. They approached the study of trauma from a poststructuralist point of view whereby linguistic expression of trauma remains a difficult enterprise. They focus on the presence of the absent in the present whereby it is the absent that defines the present.
Today in the domain of literary theory and criticism, especially in the backdrop of the global socio-political scenario, trauma and trauma studies have gained a huge significance. Writers delve into their historical pasts as individuals and also into the historical pasts of their communities to face the ghosts of their traumatic pasts. Once the ghost is faced and liberated, there is an anticipated change. 
The paper aims at evaluating the significance of the theory of trauma studies in the curriculum and the overall teaching learning process in the backdrop of learning outcome based curriculum framework by integrating the theory with the principles of psychoanalysis and feminism. Though psychoanalysis remains the founding theoretical paradigm behind trauma theory and other literary schools have only added to it depending upon the orientation of the school under study. This paper approaches trauma theory through feminism and gender studies in order to define the political value of the school of trauma. Trauma theory is not just a theory with implications of producing knowledge, it is also a technique of reading. Therefore, feminist theory of trauma first reformulates trauma theory with principles of feminism in the background and then offers a possible method to read feminist texts and the texts that are seen as subverting women’s rights.

UNA: Awakening the Giant — The Army of 700 Million Sons of Africa Motherland is not an ordinary book. It is a prophetic manifesto, a torch, and a trumpet calling Africa’s youth to rise. Written with fire and vision by Adrianus Andrew Muganga (Ramadan), this powerful work is the final volume of the UNA trilogy, following The United Nations of Africa (UNA) and The Midnight / The Veil.

This book confronts centuries of lies, exploitation, and division that have kept Africa bowed. It unmasks global systems of control—aid that chains, debt that imprisons, and division that weakens. It calls out false leaders who enslave their own people while serving foreign masters. And it reminds the world that Africa is not poor; Africa is plundered. Beneath the weight of betrayal lies a giant, clothed in wealth, crowned in youth, and armed with destiny.

That giant is Africa’s 700 million young people — engineers, farmers, teachers, inventors, soldiers, dreamers, and leaders. Muganga declares that this generation is not a burden but an army of destiny. They are the sons and daughters of the Motherland, chosen not to wait for permission but to rise now.

Through history, prophecy, and vision, UNA: Awakening the Giant sets forth a bold blueprint for the future:

One Passport — an Africa without borders, where its people move freely as one family.

One Currency — economic sovereignty, ending dependency on IMF loans and unfair systems.

One Parliament — the largest democratic body on earth, representing 1.55 billion Africans.

One Army — a shield to protect the continent’s resources, dignity, and destiny.

One High House — a central seat of governance in Addis Ababa, with regional zones to ensure balance.

This is not simply politics — it is prophecy. It is a covenant of dignity between the Motherland and her children, a call to reclaim inheritance and rebuild Africa on foundations of unity, justice, and faith.

With passionate prose, Muganga weaves together biblical parallels, African heroes like Nkrumah, Sankara, Lumumba, and modern prophetic voices like Ibrahim Traoré. He shows that history follows a pattern: whenever empires fall and nations cry out, God raises leaders from obscurity — not politicians, but visionaries called to liberate. He names this coming figure the Horseman of Destiny, not to rule tribes, but to awaken UNA.

But the book makes clear: this destiny does not belong to one man. It belongs to the youth — 700 million strong, burning with fire in their bones.

UNA: Awakening the Giant is a trumpet blast at midnight, declaring that Africa’s dawn is here. It is both a warning to systems of pride and exploitation that their time is ending, and an invitation to Africa’s youth to rise into their calling. More than a book, it is a covenant of renewal.

Read it not as entertainment, but as prophecy. Discuss it in homes, classrooms, mosques, churches, and communities. Carry it not as words on paper, but as fire in your spirit. This is not just a book about Africa’s future — it is a blueprint for living it.

The giant is awake. The army is rising. UNA is not tomorrow. UNA is now.

Despite the potential value of the |xam folklore recorded by the Afrikaans land surveyor and author Gideon R. von Wielligh during the late 1800s, his work has predominantly been dismissed as unscientific and unreliable. In contrast, the archive of German linguist Wilhelm H. I. Bleek and his English sister-in-law, Lucy C. Lloyd, enjoys a great deal of attention from a wide array of disciplines. Sigrid Schmidt goes so far as to argue that Von Wielligh's recordings are merely plagiarised versions of Bleek and Lloyd texts, and identifies various narratives where there are thematic similarities between the two archives to support this claim. This article illustrates the importance of Von Wielligh's recordings through a comparative close reading of two central texts from the Von Wielligh and Bleek and Lloyd collections, which Schmidt identified as sharing enough similarity to warrant being described as plagiarism. This close reading hinges on the concept of "nuggets," as proposed by David Lewis-Williams in the study of |xam narrative. Furthermore, this close reading is positioned within the broader frame of holographic archaeology, which is a methodological frame I conceived in an earlier piece to validate the linguistic data in the Von Wielligh collection. Seeing that the |xam folkloric material at our disposal is already sparse, I hope to highlight through this comparative reading the relevance of all recorded material-and not simply that of Bleek and Lloyd-in an effort to derive more understanding of and enjoyment from |xam heritage texts.

Л. Н. Толстой был единственным писателем в досоветской России, который не только привлек внимание читателей на юге Африки к своим произведениям, но и общался с южноафриканцами, непосредственно влияя на литераторов, общественных и политических деятелей. Воздействие Толстого на южноафриканскую реалистическую литературу можно проследить на протяжении XX в. В последние десять лет своей жизни Толстой не раз писал и говорил об африканерах. Литераторы-африканеры часто ссылались на произведения Толстого.

Often, the correlation between history and creative fiction sparks off an engrossing intellectual debate. The postcolonial literature is an obvious exemplum of the mutual and artistic intertwining of history and fiction. Since postcolonial writing is a byproduct of the historical process of colonisation, it undoubtedly bears a clear imprint of the historicity of a colonised country, thus an inseparable kinship between history and creative fiction is established. This notion of creative fusion of history and fiction manifests very evidently in African literature. Kenyan literature, especially novels, produced during the colonial and post-colonial era reverberates the strong influence of historical elements. The objective of the present paper is to probe the intervention of history in the early novels of Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The paper examines the persistent use of historical elements in the novels Weep Not, Child (1964) and The River Between (1965). His novels document the historical, political, social and economic events of Kenya of colonial era and often address the pressing historical and the political issues of his time. The research is based on the close textual analysis of the two novels mentioned above. The researchers have made an attempt to scrutinise these novels linking the events and circumstances in the novels to the real history of Kenya.

Voor mij was het pamflet dat mevrouw I.R. Vorstman mij toonde, een verrassende, originele vondst. Mijn belangstelling gaat uit naar alles wat met kometen te maken heeft, dus een zeventiende eeuws pamflet met als titel Klare Afbeeldiiige van de Staert-Ster (figuur 1) is dan een treffer.' Het pamflet bespreekt Amsterdamse waarnemingen van de komeetverschijning van 21 december 1664 tot 11 februari 1665, alsmede een groot aantal buitenlandse waarnemingen. Het bevat tevens een aantal sterrenkundige schetsen van de beweging van de komeet ten opzichte van de sterrenhemel. Na speurwerk in diverse catalogi vond ik nog een exemplaar.-Bovendien bleek er een serie pamfletten over deze komeet te bestaan, uitgegeven bij de Amsterdamse drukker Paulus Matthysz.' In de pamfletten-collectie van de Universiteitsbibliotheek van Amsterdam bevinden zich de volgende twee, eerdere pamfletten over deze komeet: De ware Afbeeldinge van de tegenwoordige Staert-Sterre (met de waarnemingen tot en met 27 december 1664 en voorzien van een gedicht) en Ware Afbeeldinge van de Staert-Sterre (met de waarnemingen tot en met januari 1665). Het is duidelijk dat de schrijver/drukker, naarmate de waarnemingen konden worden voortgezet, steeds met een opvolgend pamflet kwam! De drie pamfletten hebben veel tekstuele overeenkomsten en ook de schetsen van de komeet tussen de sterren komen voor wat betreft de laatste twee pamfletten overeen. Voordat ik de inhoud van de Klare Afbeeldinge van de Staert-Ster, het meest complete pamflet, weergeef, eerst iets over de komeet van 1664. Al sinds mensenheugenis zorgt een verschijning van een heldere komeet (= staartster) aan de nachtelijke hemel voor grote opwinding. Niet alleen bij de sterrenkundigen, maar ook bij het gewone volk. Was dit een hemels teken? Wat duidde het ons? Voor de meeste mensen, en zeker voor de leek, was de verschijning van een komeet een aankondiging van een kwade boodschap en werden komeetverschijningen gevreesd. Pestepidemieën, de dood van vorsten, strenge winters; al deze zaken werden toegeschreven aan de verschijning van heldere kometen.•* Op 17 november 1664 werd in Spanje een nieuwe komeet ontdekt, die tijdens de wintermaanden van 1664/1665 door vele sterrenkundigen werd waargenomen en ook bij de gewone man niet aan de aandacht ontsnapte. De eerste gedocumenteerde waarneming komt uit Nederland, waar Kechelius (Samuel Carel Kachel, 1611-1668) op 2 december 1664 de komeet vanuit Leiden waarnam. Ten onrechte wordt deze waarneming wel eens aan Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) toegeschreven. Dat Kechelius de waarnemer was, blijkt duidelijk uit een brief die Kechelius aan Huygens schreef: Hoe, wacr, cnopwatmaiücren tijdt^e felve iiacr vertoondtheeft, i'664.cnxé^J»^,, zo in Nederlaiidtj Hoogh-diiytllandt, Switferlaiult, Vrankrijk, Engelandt, Yrlandt» 'u, t't*' ' Italicn , ïutkyen, cu in de Oofterfe Lauden.

‘I was always compelled by the simple motto of our founding mothers, “Lift as you climb”: help others to succeed’, writes Joyce Piliso-Seroke in her memoir Jwara! Induna’s Daughter. When we look at her life journey, we see that this motto is strongly reflected in her activism and character. Piliso-Seroke is a former social worker, gender activist, and anti-apartheid activist who worked for the Young Women's Christian Association and was actively involved in various activist organisations, during and after apartheid. Surrounded by women leaders throughout her life, women’s rights and empowerment have been a core focus of her work and activism. She fought alongside other influential South African women activists who became her idols, companions, and close friends. Conversely, Piliso-Seroke herself became an inspiration for women in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. So far, there is only little scholarship about Joyce Piliso-Seroke’s crucial contributions to the struggle against apartheid and for women’s rights and on her role in the establishment of South Africa’s transnational ties. Drawing primarily on her memoir and on a personal interview with her, this article responds to this gap and pays tribute.

This study presented a New Historicist reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel, Half of a Yellow Sun. New Historicism, a method of literary criticism that examined literature in the context of the historical and cultural conditions of its time, provided a lens to explore the complex interplay between history and narrative in Adichie's work. The novel, set during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), clearly depicted the political, social, and personal turmoil experienced by the characters, thus offering a fertile ground for historical analysis. The study began with an introduction to the scope and significance of the research, outlining the problem statement, aims, objectives, and research methodology. Based on a qualitative and content analysis approach, it moves into the theoretical framework of New Historicism, explaining how this approach was applied to Adichie's novel. A synopsis of Half of a Yellow Sun was provided to ground readers in the novel's narrative before diving into the New Historicist analysis. Through this lens, the study examined the interweaving of historical facts and fiction, highlighting how Adichie used her characters and plot to reflect on the real-life events of the Nigerian Civil War. The analysis revealed how the novel engaged with the history and politics of Nigeria, including the impact of colonialism and the complexities of post-colonial identity. Furthermore, it explored Adichie's narrative techniques and style, particularly her use of multiple perspectives and nonlinear storytelling, which served to explain the fragmented and multifaceted nature of history. Finally, the findings of this study demonstrates that Half of a Yellow Sun is not just a work of fiction but a crucial commentary on Nigerian history and the lingering effects of colonialism and war. Therefore, in blending personal and historical narratives, Adichie has invited readers to reconsider the ways in which history is written and remembered. The study thus explored the significance of New Historicism in understanding the novel's contribution to historical discourse.

This study deploys Searle's commissive act to critically analyze the inauguration speeches of Governor Godwin Obaseki in order to make obvious the ideological underpinnings and trends of politics in Edo State and by extension Nigeria. Edo State, just like every other state in the country, carries the cancer of electoral malpractices orchestrated by the intrigues of the drama of Nigerian politicians. This study is motivated by the need to find out how Governor Obaseki deploys commissive acts in his inauguration speeches, the inherent ideological underpinnings and the discursive placement of inaugural speeches in political discourse. The study observes the following: the governor made use of commissive verbs to foreground his futuristic actions in his promises, he anchors his commitment on his ideology of industrialization which is one of the cardinal points in his campaign. All the excerpts of the governor's commitment to job creation are only found in the 2016 speech. Finally, this study concludes that inauguration speeches are testaments which discursively document and report the intrigues of pre-election and election drama.

This paper explores narrative monologue as a medium for depicting history in Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter by applying discourse-based analysis. The study's objective is to examine the novel's events that are told from an interior narrative perspective and how they depict historical phases in the course of the novel's plot. On the one hand, it examines the characters' internal monologue and how it functions as an expression of the characters' communicative relationships. On the other hand, it demonstrates how narrative monologue serves as a means of allegorical depiction of the historical layers related to the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. Therefore, the study's methodology depends on a close reading of the characters' internal monologue. Furthermore, it conducts a textual analysis of the historical narrative implications regarding the anti-Apartheid struggle portrayed in the fictional events of the plot. In this way, the study makes a narrative and historical interpretation of literary allegory employed by Gordimer to paint a vivid picture of contemporary anti-Apartheid activism. Therefore, the study will examine the thematic characteristics of apartheid and how it influences the characters'

Met vloei / stof doen die digter oudergewoonte sy reputasie as spesialis op die veld van die hermeneutiese vers gestand. Hetsy ’n internis van beroep wat die menslike liggaam op eksakte wyse moet ondersoek op soek na ’n onderliggende, versluierde siektetoestand, vereis Gibson se digkuns ’n geduldige leser wat elke vers as die literêre speurder-as-eksegeet moet benader. Gibson is vantevore deur literatore en
resensente hieroor geroskam. Sy jongste bundel dien egter as bewys dat die hermeneutiese vers myns insiens geensins afbreek maak aan die digterlike beeldbeskrywing of metafoor nie. Die aandagtige leser word eerder beloon met ’n oorvloed verse wat die menslike palaat soos ’n goeie rooiwyn sal verkwik.

Hierdie gratis leesgids is as hulpmiddel vir die onderwyser en leerder in die klaskamer bedoel. Dit is geskryf met graad 7 Huistaal (of graad 8 Eerste Addisionele Taal) as hooffokus en volgens die riglyne van die Kurrikulum-en assesseringsbeleidsverklaring (KABV) uiteengesit.

Hierdie leesgids is saamgestel deur dr. Dewald Koen, Fakulteit Opvoedkunde, Nelson Mandela Universiteit, Gqeberha.

Hierdie gids is as gratis hulpmiddel vir die onderwyser en leerder in die klaskamer bedoel. Dit is geskryf met graad 7 Huistaal (of graad 8 Afrikaans Eerste Addisionele Taal) as hooffokus en volgens die riglyne van die Kurrikulum- en assesseringsbeleidsverklaring (KABV) uiteengesit.

Hierdie gids is saamgestel deur dr. Dewald Koen, Fakulteit Opvoedkunde, Nelson Mandela Universiteit, Gqeberha.

Kopiereg: © Tafelberg, 2025. ’n Druknaam van NB Uitgewers.

Speaking about his early experiments with the camera, the Nobel Prize winning novelist J. M. Coetzee acknowledged the seminal influence of images on his writing: 'The marks of photography and of the cinema are all over my work, from the beginning.' This book presents an archivally grounded examination of the influence of the camera on Coetzee's creative practice, providing insights that can help us read the novels in new ways. In this comprehensive examination of the formative role that photographic images play in Coetzee's oeuvre, Wittenberg offers evidence from biographical and archival sources, Coetzee's own critical writings, and the whole range of fictions themselves to gauge the extent of Coetzee's visual imagination. This book argues that the images that Coetzee writes into his fictions are charged with an affective and ethical force that connects them to larger questions relating to the truth, a relationship in which the autobiographical self is implicated.

In Theory of the Idea, Plato proposes an intersection of the abstract and the concrete as the genesis of a new product. This discussion is centred on the Platonian notion and ingenuity of the grafting of two entities to create something new. As in Grecian times, grafting exists in African communities. This article seeks to present the idea of grafting as displayed in the confluence of Masilela's "idea" and Kunene's "art form". This demonstrates the hallmark of the New African Movement (NAM). The discussion explores five areas of Kunene's philosophy as an expression of Masilela's ideology of the new African renaissance: the family, religion, knowledge, land, and the epic. The power of the idea birthed through form (art) is thus shown in our purposeful examination of Kunene's philosophy and advocacy for the preservation of African epistemologies, affirming Ngidi's point that Kunene provides key pillars of Masilela's ideology. Framed in a different ancient civilisation, Masilela's ideology of the new African intersects with Kunene's work and yields a product that is a fitting instrument for Africa's self-reimaging. The New African Movement is thus an apt framework for recentring Africa's epistemologies, as articulated by Kunene whose work exhibits Africa's heritage that needs re-centring.

In Theory of the Idea, Plato proposes an intersection of the abstract and the concrete as the genesis of a new product. This discussion is centred on the Platonian notion and ingenuity of the grafting of two entities to create something new. As in Grecian times, grafting exists in African communities. This article seeks to present the idea of grafting as displayed in the confluence of Masilela's "idea" and Kunene's "art form". This demonstrates the hallmark of the New African Movement (NAM). The discussion explores five areas of Kunene's philosophy as an expression of Masilela's ideology of the new African renaissance: the family, religion, knowledge, land, and the epic. The power of the idea birthed through form (art) is thus shown in our purposeful examination of Kunene's philosophy and advocacy for the preservation of African epistemologies, affirming Ngidi's point that Kunene provides key pillars of Masilela's ideology. Framed in a different ancient civilisation, Masilela's ideology of the new African intersects with Kunene's work and yields a product that is a fitting instrument for Africa's self-reimaging. The New African Movement is thus an apt framework for recentring Africa's epistemologies, as articulated by Kunene whose work exhibits Africa's heritage that needs re-centring.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'First People(s)' (also written uncapitalized) is a chiefly Canadian term: '(Usually in plural) Indigenous peoples in Canada, considered collectively; First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples; (also more generally) the Indigenous peoples of any country or region'. The OED further dates the earliest known use of the noun to the title of a 1973 book, The first peoples in Quebec; a reference work on the history, environment, economic and legal position of the Indians and Inuit of Quebec, by Toby Ornstein. I have found no scholarly accounts which adduce an earlier usage. However, some fifteen years earlier than Ornstein's book, Laurens van der Post can be seen using the term in what I demonstrate in this article is an identical sense.

A importância da Punch Magazine no estudo sobre o grande período do Imperialismo Britânico no século XIX vem sendo pouco abordada. Com suas caricaturas satíricas, o periódico, auxiliou na disseminação da ideologia imperialista, imprimindo uma cultura, e abrindo espaço para o que podemos chamar de "império informal". 1 O estudo deste trabalho esta centrado em analisar as caricaturas desta revista ilustrada entre os períodos de 1881 a 1902 dentro da temática da Guerra Anglo-Bôer. A Guerra se trata de um conflito entre "brancos" e disputa territorial na África Austral, entre o Império Britânico e os Bôeres (descendentes de holandeses e alemães) durante os períodos de 1880 a 1881 e de 1899 a 1902. A grande circulação da Punch trouxe impactos na política imperialista britânica e nas relações entre ingleses e bôeres ao longo do conflito, tendo sido um grande instrumento do império britânico. Palavras-chave: caricaturas; imperialismo; África; Guerra dos Bôeres.

Dietloff van der BergLitNet25-skrywersberaad2025-03-26 • 2 0000000 Die doel met hierdie essay is om die aandag toe te spits op die wyse waarop die geskrewe teks rimpelings veroorsaak wat op verskillende maniere uitdein in die gemeenskap in. DJ Opperman skryf in Joernaal van Jorik (1949:15): "[N]iks is in sy tyd en stof gesluit / maar alles stroom deur grens en eeu aaneen." PJ Conradie se bundel opstelle oor die klassieke en modern drama, Niks is in sy tyd gesluit (1976) dra ook daardie gedagte van die voortgang van literêre tekste oor. Allen (2011) voer die intertekstuele reikwydte selfs so ver as om te suggereer dat betekenis in 'n teks slegs in verhouding tot ander tekste agterhaal kan word en dat geen werk op sy eie staan nie, maar verbind is aan die voorafgaande tradisie en die konteks waarin dit geskep is.

Метою статті є дослідження жанрової специфіки роману Дж. М. Кутзее "Безчестя" (1999). Незважаючи на те, що роман не одноразово ставав об'єктом широкого наукового вивчення, передусім у його історичному, політичному та постколоніальному вимірах, всебічний аналіз його жанрової специфіки залишився поза його межами. У цій статті застосовано типологічний, герменевтичний та інтермедіальний методи аналізу, які дозволять визначити жанрову приналежність роману "Безчестя". Спираючись на теорії літературознавців М. Бахтіна, Р. Серет, Н. Бочкарьової, наше дослідження виявляє очевидну схожість роману з таким жанровим різновидом, як роман про митця, зокрема, з таким його інваріантом, як роман про музиканта. Головний герой роману Дж. М. Кутзее -Девідзображується як митець протягом усієї оповіді, який переходить від початкового прагнення написати оперу про лорда Байрона та його коханку до процесу cтворення самої музики. Особливу увагу приділено тричастинній сюжетно-композиційній структурі роману "Безчестя" -життєпису героя-митця, творчого процесу та роздумів про мистецтво, що віддзеркалює традиційну структуру роману про митця. Шлях Девіда до написання музичного твору стає символічною репрезентацією його особистісної трансформації та претензії на безсмертя. Крім цього, нами було виокремлено п'ять рівнів тексту (сюжетно-тематичний, метафоричний, композиційно-наративний, словесно-образний та рівень музичної цитати), на яких можна виявити "присутність" музики в романі. Це підкреслює строкату інтермедіальність твору, демонструючи, як музика пронизує кожний прошарок тексту, від сюжету й тематики до тональності оповіді та музичних цитат. Музика в романі стає єдиним можливим медіатором комунікації, оскільки її універсальна мова робить її доступною для сприйняття людьми різного походження та соціального статусу, а головному герою дає можливість бути почутим. Окремо розглядаються всі елементи змістової структури роману (конфлікт, хронотоп, образ героя-митця, лейтмотив, сюжетно-композиційну побудову), аналіз і специфіка яких також доводить той факт, що "Безчестя" є таким інваріантом роману про митця, як роману про музиканта.

This paper delves into Athol Fugard's play, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, to examine the representation of apartheid and its far-reaching consequences on individuals and society. The paper illuminates how apartheid perpetuates systemic oppression, erases identities and undermines human dignity. The objective of the paper is to critically examine the play through the lens of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, highlighting the intersections of race, class and power. By employing Critical Race Theory, the paper examines the structural and institutional dimensions of apartheid, while Intersectionality unfurls the multiplicative effects of oppression on individuals. The paper reveals that Sizwe Banzi's experiences exemplify the dehumanising effects of apartheid, including forced assimilation, economic exploitation and psychological trauma. The intersections of race, class and gender compound the forms of oppression faced by Black South Africans, reinforcing the significance of Intersectionality in understanding these complex dynamics. The analysis demonstrates the significance of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality in understanding the complex dynamics of oppression and resistance. Sizwe Banzi is Dead serves as a powerful critique of apartheid, exposing its destructive legacy.

This paper explores the concept of deterritorialization in Athol Fugard's Blood Knot through the philosophical frameworks of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, focusing on how Fugard's characters transcend the oppressive restrictions of apartheid using symbolic actions and postdramatic techniques. The study employs a multidisciplinary approach, applying Deleuze and Guattari's philosophical concepts to analyze Blood Knot through three primary lenses: temporal displacement, symbolic landscapes, and embodied contradictions. These elements are examined to reveal how Fugard manipulates time, space, and the physicality of his characters to reflect the process of deterritorialization. By analyzing how identity markers and power dynamics are portrayed and subverted within the play, the approach combines philosophical theory with literary analysis to uncover the deeper layers of resistance and transformation within the characters' experiences under apartheid. The analysis demonstrates that Fugard's characters rise above apartheid's constraints by engaging in symbolic and embodied actions, which reflect the fluidity of identity and resistance to oppressive systems. The manipulation of time, symbolic environments, and physical struggles within the play illustrates a deeper process of deterritorialization, where characters disrupt the rigid social and political structures imposed on them. By examining the play through philosophical and symbolic lenses, the study highlights Fugard's nuanced portrayal of resistance and the fluid, dynamic nature of identity under oppressive regimes, providing a richer understanding of the complexities of identity and power within the play's historical and political context. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature by offering an interdisciplinary analysis of Blood Knot through Deleuze and Guattari's concept of deterritorialization. It highlights how Fugard's characters resist apartheid through symbolic, spatial, and temporal strategies, enriching discussions on identity, power, and postdramatic forms of resistance.

This review examines Katherine Hallemeier's African Literature and US Empire: Postcolonial Optimism in Nigerian and South African Writing (Edinburgh UP, 2024), which reframes African literary studies by theorizing "postcolonial optimism" as an ambivalent attachment to the nation under American imperial power. Through Nigerian and South African novels, Hallemeier demonstrates how optimism both sustains domination and seeds counter-imaginaries of freedom. Engaging affect theory, political economy, and transatlantic Black intellectual traditions, the study foregrounds universities and credit systems as sites of attachment. The review highlights Hallemeier's conceptual rigor, comparative insight, and methodological innovation, while noting the archive's Anglophone limits.

Le passage de l'Afrique du Sud d'un systeme politique repressif a un systeme democratique a ouvert un nouvel espace de parole aux exclus, notamment aux femmes noires a travers les Commissions pour la Verite. La parole feminine noire liberee suite a la transition politique du pays se reflete aussi dans le developpement d'une production litteraire feminine, donnant lieu a l'emergence de nouvelles formes d'ecriture romanesque, etudiees dans ce travail qui porte sur dix romans publies par huit auteures entre 1998 et 2011 : S. Magona, K.L. Molope, K. Matlwa, A.N. Sithebe, A. Makholwa, H.J. Gololai, Z. Wanner et C. Jele. Nous etudions dans un premier temps comment les ecrivaines s'approprient le genre romanesque durant la periode transitionnelle, s'eloignant d'une ecriture realiste politiquement engagee, courante durant l'apartheid, pour se tourner vers une ecriture de l'intime qui met en lumiere les traumatismes d'un passe national qui hante le...

Le passage de l'Afrique du Sud d'un système politique répressif à un système démocratique a ouvert un nouvel espace de parole aux exclus, notamment aux femmes noires à travers les Commissions pour la Vérité. La parole féminine noire libérée suite à la transition politique du pays se reflète aussi dans le développement d'une production littéraire féminine, donnant lieu à l'émergence de nouvelles formes d'écriture romanesque, étudiées dans ce travail qui porte sur dix romans publiés par huit auteures entre 1998 et 2011 : S. Magona, K.L. Molope, K. Matlwa, A.N. Sithebe, A. Makholwa, H.J. Gololai, Z. Wanner et C. Jele. Nous étudions dans un premier temps comment les écrivaines s'approprient le genre romanesque durant la période transitionnelle, s'éloignant d'une écriture réaliste politiquement engagée, courante durant l'apartheid, pour se tourner vers une écriture de l'intime qui met en lumière les traumatismes d'un passé national qui hante le...

The primary focus of this paper is to show that Coetzee's characters suffer from intense psychological and existential unrest that evinces an unending and inexhaustible search and desire for meaning, pattern, and order. These characters show a capacity for reflection and volition that characterizes subjectivity in its various emotional and intellectual modalities. Coetzee grants centrality to a character who assimilates and interprets the external world that sometimes recedes. His character's conception of subjectivity is determined by the ambivalent tension between a desire for connection and a longing for isolation. This subjectivity is shaped by interaction with a larger, social, and cultural milieu, rendering the character's life a symbiotic interplay of cultural and individual contexts. This paper highlights this violent exchange that always leads to the friction between the self and the other, resulting in fractured identities that resist fixed political or ethical categorization. It consequently shows that Coetzee's recondite works, especially Life and Times of Michael K and Disgrace, register a real involvement in the deep machinations of the subjective experience; therefore, this paper aims to grapple with this particular complexity of individual ambivalent subjectivity within the post-apartheid South African history and social and political structures.

Dit is verblydend om te sien hoe die Afrikaanse poësie in verskeie gedaantes floreer hetsy as gepubliseerde solo digdebute of bloot nuwe stemme wat in die Afrikaanse liriek opklink. In laasgenoemde geval kan Neil Cochrane en Alwyn Roux (samestellers) se bundel Merang (2025) as voorbeeld dien waarin beide gevestigde digters sowel as voorheen ongepubliseerde digters se gedigte opgeneem is. Verskeie nuwe bundels het sedert die begin van die jaar die lig gesien. Enkeles sluit in Ryan Pedro se prins, Pirow Bekker se Die bloei van blomme, Marié Heese se Skulpkrale, en Herman Wasserman se pasverskene waterman wat elk hul unieke stempel op die Afrikaanse digkuns nalaat. Daarbenewens het Protea ’n keuse van Marlise Joubert se gedigte getiteld Atrium: Gedigte (1970-2025) met ’n keuse deur die literator, Karen de Wet, gepubliseer. Ook Wilma Stockenström word vereer met Nogmaals vir die bysiende leser saamgestel deur Joan Hambidge en Marlies Taljard. Stockenström se invloed op Afrikaanse digters word in dié bundel verken. Dit blyk goed te gaan met die Afrikaanse digkuns en dat daar nog ’n behoefte hiervoor bestaan ten spyte van die oorweldigende intellektuele verloedering in die era van die videosfeer (soos die filosoof Johann Rossouw in die vroeë 2000’s daarna verwys het) waarin ons onsself bevind.

Een van die solo debutante is Thérèse Bartman (ook bekend as Thérèse Hulme). Van Bartman se gedigte het reeds in Nuwe stemme 3 (2005) verskyn asook in André P. Brink se Groot Verseboek (2008). Haar solobundel getiteld die helfte is jou nie vertel nie is ’n interessante spel met die orale, en klankryke tradisie van lied en liriek. Die titel sinjaleer rondom die gebeure en besinnings oor geskiedkundige persona en narratiewe in die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks.

Domestic work — one of the largest sources of employment
in South Africa — is rooted in the colonial and apartheid era,
during which black women worked as domestic servants for white
families. In contemporary South Africa, however, domestic work is
prevalent in black families, and there is a growing trend towards
family domestic work: family members or close friends working as
domestic workers for kin. Typical challenges in the domestic work
sector include the navigation of employer–employee relationships,
which shape the negotiation of other working conditions. In family
domestic work, the setting is worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic
and implementation of working from home. This paper draws
from 15 semi-structured interviews conducted with black women
working as family domestic workers. The findings suggest that
family domestic work is centred in reciprocal caring — sister-maids
are financially enabled to support families and sister-madams are
assisted with domestic duties. Covid-19 has had an impact on family
domestic work and family–work relationships, whereby sister-maids
had difficulties working in the presence of sister-madams and their
children. Hence, silence is adopted by sister-maids challenged by
working during Covid-19. However, the pandemic also enabled
some sister-maids and sister-madams to grow closer to each other,
which strengthened family–work relationships.

Joinder and separation in criminal trials: procedural differentiation between the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 and the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 This submission is a comparative investigation which focuses on issues of fairness and procedural legitimacy during a trial where an adult and a child are co-accused in the same instance. It is submitted that the principles of separation are theoretically grounded in the Criminal Procedure Act and their juxtaposition with the Child Justice Act, when used simultaneously at trial, create a complicated procedural synergy. This submission is explained within the legislative imperative to protect the child's rights and best interests. The question that arises from this investigation is whether the Child Justice Act, applied at the joint trial of an adult and child co-accused, is effective in protecting both parties' constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. We submit that where a joint trial is unavoidable, material rules should be enacted to protect the right of both categories of offenders (i.e. adult and child) to a fair trial on the one hand and to give effect to the proper functioning of the criminal justice process on the other. This article explores the themes briefly outlined above within the comparative context of England and Wales. It concludes by providing recommendations for the averred lacunae caused by the Child Justice Act when applied to the joint trial of an adult and child co-accused.

Hierdie bydrae is 'n vergelykende, regsteoretiese ondersoek wat fokus op prosessuele en geregtigheidsoorwegings tydens die gesamentlike verhoor van 'n volwasse beskuldigde en 'n kind. Ons wys in die bespreking daarop dat die prosessuele oorwegings van skeiding van verhore met die gebruik van die Child Justice Act teoreties gegrond is op die beginsels van die Strafproseswet, hoewel die verwesenliking van geregtigheidsoorwegings met die inwerkingtreding van die Child Justice Act in 'n verhoor 'n komplekse prosessuele sinergie daarstel. Hierdie stelling word verduidelik aan die hand van oorwegings wat voortvloei uit die toepassing van regsbeginsels wat ten doel het om die regte van 'n kind en gepaardgaande belange van 'n kind te beskerm. Die vraag wat ontstaan, is of die verwesenliking van die voorskrifte van die Child Justice Act in 'n verhoor waar volwasse en kinderbeskuldigdes gesamentlik teregstaan, gestand doen aan elkeen van die beskuldigdes se gro...

This article discusses the emergence of magical realism as a narrative form embraced by a number of South African writers in the transition period and increasingly attuned to South African writing sensibility during this time. I argue that South African magical realism goes beyond the joining of realist and postmodern narrative strands by reconciling realism's faithfulness to the socio-political context and postmodernism's devotion to formal experimentation, syncretism, and meta-fiction. Magical realism simultaneously relies heavily on African oral traditions, and in doing so, it not only constitutes a point of confluence for black and white writing of the apartheid era, but it also epitomises the reconciliation of Eurocentric Western rationalism and African tradition. While discussing magic realism in relation to the postapartheid novels of André Brink and Zakes Mda, this article points towards the possible origins of the proliferation of South African texts embracing this narrative mode in the period directly following the demise of apartheid, as well as the possible reasons behind the gradual abandonment of magical realist narrative strategy in post-millennial South African fiction. Thus, South African magical realist texts will be positioned at the intersection between literature of celebration and literature of disillusionment, emerging out of the short-lived coexistence of the two literary trends in South African literary history.

This dissertation examines Willj'ia Plotter's first novel, Turbott Wolfe (1925), within its socio-political and literary context, ax'd also explores the crucial relation ship between the author's life anu his work. Turbott Wolfe at one level represents Plotter's complex responses to and interpretation of t h e South African milieu during the early 1920s. During this decade, the foundations of m o d e m Apartheid w e r e be i n g consolidated, and African Nationalism emerged as a powerful challenge t o t he South African state. Turbott Wolfe is informed by these political

Questo articolo analizza le implicazioni legate alla diaspora nella narrativa di Zoë Wicomb, scrittrice nata in Sudafrica e migrata in Scozia durante l'apartheid. Appartenenza alla terra d'origine e radicamento in quella di adozione vengono tematizzati nella sua narrativa, dove si caratterizzano in modo tale da rivelare la costruzione ideologica dei concetti di 'nazione' e 'casa'. Mi soffermerò in particolare sulla seconda raccolta di racconti di Wicomb, The One that Got Away (2008), con la sua doppia ambientazione in Sudafrica e Scozia.

'A Book of Rooms' deepens Kobus Moolman’s explorations in 'Light and After' and 'Left Over', retaining the same Beckett-like sparseness and doggedness of those books, but in the form of a realist-biographical narrative. Organised in physically dense scenes labelled ‘rooms’, it inhabits the childhood and young adulthood of a man with a serious physical disability growing up in a grim family environment on the white side of apartheid in its final years. The reader is drawn immediately into the narrator’s meetings with pain and failure, and beneath these, his will to live, his sharp flashes of humour, and his need to know the truth.

Pacéré as the demiurge of orature Not all unwritten literatures are oral literatures. They would more appropriately be referred to as "spoken literatures", in the wider sense of literatures that use different means of communication (mouth, gestures, body movement, instruments). The dumb "speak" with signs. Pio Zirimu proposed the term "orature" to palliate the alleged contradiction in the phrase "oral literature" or "spoken literature". However, as a result of in-depth studies that revealed that before writing, there was a literature, which was spoken, many literary critics prefer the traditional phrase "oral literature" instead of the suggested term "orature". The term "orature" has been taken up in performance studies to designate a genre of written literature at the cusp between spoken and written literatures, referring to written fictions that mix different performing genres. This paper aims at defining orature with an illustration from the poetry of Frédéric Titinga Pacéré and, consequently, to present him as the demiurge of this innovative genre in emerging Burkinabè literature. The implications of the genre of orature are manifold. Orature calls for a redefinition of literature as whatever a given society considers as literature. It demands an interpretation of literature based on an understanding of culture.

In a disjointed narrative drunkenness that straddles oneiric language, apocalyptic vaticinations, and alcoholic delirium, the narrative of the young itinerant preacher in John Edgar Wideman’s Cattle Killing unfurls. The narrative purports to be clear in launching the young lover into an asymptotic search for his soul mate who is nothing but a spirit akin to ogbanji, successively incarnated in deified women who experience an elusive existence and a tragic death. However, it fails to dispel, in readers, a deep doubt as to the intrinsic symbolism of this soul mate, and, finally, dissuades them that it is an ordinary love story. The Cattle Killing quilts the story of the deadly prophecy of Nongqawuse, decisive in the colonial conquest of the Xhosas in Southern Africa, into that of the epidemic yellow fever in Philadephia, and plunges the protagonist into a melancholic quest on which African people’s awakening is premised. Voudoun esthetics, Lacan’s theory of desire, and Genettian narrat...

This essay examines how Doris Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing (1950) constructs a decolonial ethics through nonhuman agency, focusing on the novel’s depiction of dogs as figures of affective refusal. In contrast to their conventional roles in colonial literature—as symbols of loyalty or control—these animals withdraw from the settler household, refusing protection or grief in the face of Mary Turner’s murder. Drawing on ethological studies and postcolonial ecocriticism, the analysis interprets this behavior not as instinct, but as ethical memory: a response shaped by care withheld and injustice perceived. The dogs’ silence and disengagement—mirrored by the land’s infertility and the settler’s ruin—form part of a larger ecological unmaking of empire. Lessing does not stage colonial collapse through spectacle, but through the quiet, cumulative refusal of life itself to sustain domination.

I read Ivan Vladislavic's novel Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked as a text that presents what I call built
psychosis, a malady that strikes almost anyone inhabiting built environments like the one Vladislavic presents Johannesburg as. I attempt to locate built psychosis as operating strictly in environments that have been constructed as a direct consequence of the latter’s ontological basis, while also understanding its impact on the individuals who inhabit such environments.

The mother-daughter relationship is a recurring and fascinating theme in recent writing. It is discussed in countless scientific research papers but it is one of the most understudied topics in the Afrikaans literature. The complex mother-daughter relationship is a common thread in the work of three black female poets i.e. Ronelda Kamfer, Jolyn Phillips and Shirmoney Rhode, each of them placing a peculiar emphasis on it. The dimensions of this relationship are analyzed within the framework of psychoanalysis as posed by Freud and Lacan. Postcolonialism also enters the discussion due to its focus on identity and the subaltern which is a key aspect of the forementioned poets’ work. However, this framework as analytical tool poses limitations when it comes to psychological aspects. This study therefore embraces an eclectic approach drawing on insights from both theoretical approaches.