“A Sense of an Absent Future.” Pervading Post-apartheid South African Literature: Re-conceptualisations of Temporality in André Brink’s Transitional Writings

Numerous commentators have recently indicated a prevailing sense among South africans of a historical repetition, a pervasive sentiment that the country has failed to shake off the legacy of apartheid, which extends into the present, and possibly also the future. 1 Such an observation has led South African psychologist, derek Hook, to conclude that in order to adequately address the post-apartheid reality and allow the process of working through trauma, there is a need to abandon the linear Judeo-Christian model of time derived from the Enlightenment. Instead, Hook advocates to start thinking of post-apartheid South Africa not as a socio-economically or racially stratified society, but rather as a country of unsynchronized, split, often overlapping temporalities. Thus, he offers to perceive of ‘chaffing temporalities’ of the contemporary predicament. Resende and Thies, on the other hand, call for a need for a reconceptualised approach to temporality not only when dealing with heavily traumatized postcolonial countries such as South Africa, but more generally when addressing the geopolitics of all the countries of the so-called ‘Global South.’ My paper will discuss the manner in which reconceptualised postcolonial temporality has been addressed by South African transitional writings by André Brink. I will argue that, although Brink’s magical realist novels of the 1990s imaginatively engage with ‘the chaffing temporalities’ of the post-apartheid predicament, their refusal to project any viable visions of the country’s future might ultimately problematise the thorough embrace of Hook’s ‘ethics of temporality.’

The Projected Past: Why Were Translated Certain Historical Novels?

The 140 years between 1850 and 1990 cover an important period from the beginning of modern literature and modern publishing houses in the second half of the nineteenth century till the end of the Communist regime. Over this period some 450 Dutch and Flemish literary works were translated into Czech and some 75 into Slovak. Historical novels and novellas make up a good part of them.As Connor (2015) has clearly shown, historical novels were a popular genre in Communist times for ideological reasons. They were considered “excellent educational instruments for people not yet apt to understand heavier work like the Communist Manifesto” as the young translator Olga Krijtová wrote to the Communist Dutch writer Theun de Vries in the early 1950s. Reviews, editor’s reports and editorial statements indicate, however, that historical novels had a similar function already before Communism, from the beginnings of Czech and Slovak translation of Dutch written literature.In this paper, we will discuss several historical novels in Czech translation by Hendrik Conscience, Louis Couperus, Madelon Székely-Lulofs, Theun de Vries, and Harry Mulisch – to illustrate changing ideological views.

An Etymology of Afrikaans ghoen (‘a shooting-marble’)

The Afrikaans word ghoen (‘a shooting-marble’) arose in a setting wherein Malay, Khoekhoe, and Dutch were spoken and in which children played and shared vocabulary. Given the similarity of meaning and sound shape among Malay gundu (‘a marble’), Khoekhoe !gon (‘to throw something on the ground’), and dialectal Dutch koen (‘a shooting-marble’), I propose that these semantically and phonetically similar etyma merged into the word ghoen through a process, here referred to as lexical syncretism, which has been remarked on by other scholars of language history and contact.

‘To look until your head starts spinning’

The article describes what kind of meaning the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert drew from his many encounters with the Netherlands, its 17th-century painting, its history and a specific form of social norms. It provides the reader with a closer look at the subjective vision of Dutch culture presented by Herbert in the volume of essays, Still Life with a Bridle. It indicates that the poet has constructed a kind of utopia here, describing, among other things, the role of the artist and his commitment to society, and it confronts the poet’s vision with the opinions of contemporary art historians. Finally, it discusses two of Herbert’s unfulfilled intentions: books devoted to the works of Vermeer and Rembrandt, as well as reconstructing the chronology of Herbert’s subsequent journeys to the Netherlands: from 1967 to 1994.

Adriaan Hulshoff’s Curaçao: An Analysis of the Novel Dorstig paradijs (1949)

In 1949, the Dutch publishing house A.J.G. Strengholt’s Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V. published the novel Dorstig paradijs. Through the eyes of Evelien van Eerdhuysen, the young, Dutch, female protagonist, author Adriaan Hulshoff presented an image of postwar Curaçao. In general, Dutch reviews of Hulshoff’s novel were quite positive and mentioned, for instance, the realistic representation of the island. Reviews published on Curaçao were very negative. At the moment the novel was published, Curaçao was fully in the news, because of the deliberations about the political status of the Dutch islands in the Caribbean. The question can be raised whether the image of Curaçao presented by Hulshoff was widespread in the Netherlands and representative of the way the Dutch looked at their Caribbean colonial possessions. One of the reasons why the book got much attention had to do with the name of the author who was hiding behind the pseudonym Adriaan Hulshoff. Most probably it was the well-known female writer Jo van Ammers-Küller, who after the Second World War, was banned from publishing because of collaborating with the Germans.

Let It Go: Multicultural Society in Los by Tom Naegels

Although scholars in the Netherlands have already attempted to integrate literary theories on migration with the specific Dutch context, none such attempts have so far been made for Flemish literature. The current paper therefore scrutinises the novel Los by Tom Naegels, an (autobiographical) account of the riots in Borgerhout (Antwerp) after the murder on Islam teacher Mohamed Achrak in 2002. As the author also covered these events as a journalist, the analysis investigates the manner in which this topical matter is intertwined with the more personal story about the struggle conducted by Naegels’s grandfather for euthanasia. The paper leans on Jérôme Meizoz’s posture theory, which differentiates the author figure from the biographical person and the narrator. In addition, the novel is situated within the contemporary literary return towards realism and Flemish literature’s negotiation of Flemish identity. By focussing on these three elements – the theme of migration, realism and Flemish identity – the paper attempts to contribute to the development of a literary theory on migration in Flanders.

A Poetic Voice in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Holland: Remco Campert and Breyten Breytenbach

This article discusses the Dutch poet Remco Campert’s involvement in the anti-apartheid movement in Holland by focusing on his magazine Gedicht (1974-1976) and his poem dedicated to the imprisoned South African writer Breyten Breytenbach. Campert’s international engagement is part of the actions undertaken by the Breytenbach-committee and other Dutch initiatives which tried to maintain public interest for the case of Breyten-bach’s imprisonment.