Diaspora and Identity in South African Fiction

J. U. Jacobs

• Publisher: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781869143015
• eBook ISBN: 9781869143459
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

South African identities, as they are represented in the contemporary South African novel, are not homogeneous but fractured and often conflicted: African, Afrikaner, 'coloured', English, and Indian – none can be regarded as rooted or pure, whatever essentialist claims members of these various ethnic and cultural communities might want to make for them. All of them, this book argues, are deeply divided and have arisen, directly or indirectly, out of the experience of diasporic displacement, migration and relocation, from the colonial, African and Indian diasporas to present-day migrations into and out of South Africa and diasporic dislocations within Africa. This study of twenty works by twelve contemporary South African novelists – Breyten Breytenbach, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Aziz Hassim, Michiel Heyns, Elsa Joubert, Zakes Mda, Njabulo S. Ndebele, Karel Schoeman, Patricia Schonstein Pinnock, Ivan Vladislaviç and Zoë Wicomb – shows how diaspora is a dominant theme in contemporary South African fiction, and the diasporic subject its most recognisable figure.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Illustrations fall between pages 160 and 161
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Diaspora and Identity in South African Fiction
• Chapter 1 The Colonial Diaspora: Karel Schoeman, Another Country
• Chapter 2 Portraits of Afrikaners: Elsa Joubert, Isobelle’s Journey
• Chapter 3 Black and White in Colour: Zoë Wicomb, David’s Story and Playing in the Light
• Chapter 4 Mapping the Indian Diaspora: Aziz Hassim, The Lotus People and Revenge of Kali
• Chapter 5 Picturing the African Diaspora: Patricia Schonstein Pinnock, Skyline
• Chapter 6 A Nomad of the Middle World: Breyten Breytenbach, A Veil of Footsteps (Memoir of a Nomadic Fictional Character)
• Chapter 7 Performing the African Diaspora: Zakes Mda, Sometimes There is a Void and Cion
• Chapter 8 An Uneasy Guest: J.M. Coetzee, Boyhood, Youth, Slow Man and Summertime
• Chapter 9 Double Negatives: Exile and Homecoming: IvanVladislavic, Double Negative and Michiel Heyns,Lost Ground
• Chapter 10 Diasporic Politics of Home: Nadine Gordimer, None to Accompany Me, The Pickup and No Time Like the Present
• Chapter 11 Embracing Chaos: Njabulo S. Ndebele, The Cry of Winnie Mandela
• Select Bibliography
• Index