Contesting Discourses and Transmodalization in J.M.Coetzee’s Fiction

South African metafictive literature by white writers, specifically J. M. Coetzee (Nobel laureate, 2003), is essentially pivoted on the black-white dialectics of discourse. The narrative is informed with a variety of sociopolitical inflections that pronounce in various ways the contemporary ideology in South African literature. Critics have greatly delineated the racio-political quagmire of the colonial subject in metafictive literature appearing in the last few decades of twentieth century. However, a deeper analysis of the representation of the colonial subject that interrogates the discourses in narrative is still untapped. J.M.Coetzee’s South African-based novels, mainly Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), Life and Times of Michael K (1983) and Age of Iron (1990), manifest a metafictional consciousness that investigates the constructs of reality of the colonial subject. It is significant to explore the logocentric premise in the representation of colonial subject and how this contributes to the meaning of the fictional word. This study is a narratological research of Coetzee’s technique of transmodalization (narrative mode shifts) between two types of discourses, the pedagogical and performative, and employs Homi K Bhabha’s (1994) theoretical framework of representative discourse. In examining the narrative mode shifts between frame breaks, metanarrative, narrative of words, narrative of dreams, and narrative of topography, this research argues that a non-position is generated between the contesting discourses. This research becomes a model for the study of colonial dynamics in metafictive white writing. It aims to unravel the elements integral in voicing the conditionality of the colonized subject and the contention of representation. This study also explores the metonymical relationships in narrative that reflect intrinsic aspects of the signification of representation.

Decolonizing the English Literature GCE A-Level via the South African Ex-Centric

In this snapshot article, I outline the background and context for the development of research-led teaching activities aimed at students pursuing the WJEC Eduqas GCE A-Level English Literature qualification. The aims of these activities are threefold: first, to assist students’ learning and preparation for the exam component ‘Unseen Prose’ (worth 10% of the overall qualification); second, to extend the impact of AHRC-funded research on South African literature to 16- to 18-year-old learners; and third, to mobilize the first two aims in support of decolonizing efforts in English Studies.

The Representation of Women in Kenneth Bhengu’s Novel Ukadebona: Iqhawe leNkosi

This article analyses the representation of women in the novel Ukadebona: Iqhawe leNkosi (Kadebona: The King’s Hero) by Kenneth Bhengu. The novel was written in 1958 at the height of apartheid and is set in an African society in the post-Impi yaseSandlwana era (post-Battle of Isandlwana era). The story is a biographical account by the protagonist, Kadebona, of his heroics and how fate thrust him into situations of both danger and opportunity. In analysing the novel both discourse analysis and thematic analysis are used. This article argues that women’s representation in the novel is ambivalent in that the author highlights both positive and negative characteristics of women. On the one hand, the author holds stereotypes about women such as those of other African writers, for example that they are weak, too sensitive, vulnerable and helpless. On the other hand, the author also represents women as deserving of love, as steadfast and as beings who must be protected from violence. The implication of these findings is that in Ukadebona: Iqhawe leNkosi women are not represented as equal to men. This differs from the current discourse of rights which advocates the equality of women and men. Also, the analysis is important because it highlights the literary work of Kenneth Bhengu whose literary contributions are largely unrecognised in South African literature.

The Position of South African Children's and Youth Literature in Librarian Training in South Africa

A survey of 16 South African library schools was undertaken to identify children's literature courses. Eighteen courses were found at eight institutions. The lecturers responsible were then interviewed - giving details of course content, resources available and their perceptions of their challenges. The courses are clearly under threat and very little emphasis is placed on South African literature. The intervention of the Library and Information Association of South Africa and library organisations is called for.

Journalism and the Black Short Story in English in Twentieth-Century South Africa: From R. R. R. Dhlomo to Miriam Tlali

In the present article I seek to discuss, following a diachronic approach, the close-knit relationship that can be found between journalistic discourse and the genre of the short story in Anglophone South African literature over a time span of fifty years, between the late Twenties and the Eighties. In particular, I intend to explore this genre negotiation by close reading selected short stories and/or newspaper articles by four non-white South African writers: R. R. R. Dhlomo, Can Themba, Alex La Guma, and Miriam Tlali. The intersections between the two different genres and discourses in these hybrid texts can be identified at the level of both content and form. A close reading of selected short stories and/or articles may call for a revaluation of this “South African New Journalism” as a creative experimentation that challenges conventional generic categorisations.

South goes East. Zuid-Afrikaanse literatuur bij Volk & Welt

The paper analyses the transfer of South African literature to the German Democratic Republic. In its historiographic/methodological dimension it presents findings on the statistics of (South) African literature(s) translations in the Verlag Volk und Welt (the major East German publisher in the area of contemporary world literature), and on the place of literary translations in the East German foreign cultural policy, as well as in the socialist solidarity discourse of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and the antiapartheid movement. Furthermore, findings are presented on the publisher-internal selection criteria applied to South African literature, based on the archival data from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin (i.e. applications for a print permit and internal/external reviews), on issues around the transformation and adaptation of literature translated in the realm of the East German Weltliteratur, and on the transfer of South African literature from the GDR, based on the English language series Seven Seas Books. Lastly, the function of this alternative canon, framed within the so-called ‘minor transnationalism’, is spelled out.