Two of South Africa's untellable stories

English in Africa, 2016

A number of works of non-fiction written in the post-apartheid period reflect on childhood and adolescent experiences during the apartheid years. This paper looks at three of them: Jacob Dlamini's Native Nostalgia (2009) and Chris van Wyk's two memoirs, Shirley, Goodness and Mercy (2004) and Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch (2010). Dlamini's memoir describes his childhood in Katlehong, while van Wyk's deal with his early experiences in Riverlea. These memoirs are unusual in that, while they do not hesitate to expose the injustices of apartheid, they nevertheless seek to convey the persistence of normality and the "ordinariness" of family and community life within the abnormality of apartheid. This paper considers the implications of "fondness" or nostalgia in all three memoirs, as well the ways in which Dlamini and van Wyk present non-deterministic conceptions of identity and pay tribute to powerful matriarchal figures. The use of humour in Shirley, Goodness and Mercy and Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch is also analysed. Finally, some possible reasons are given as to why van Wyk's memoirs seem to have been spared much of the criticism which has been directed at Dlamini's.

Mediating Memory: Tracing the Limits of Memoir Edited by Bunty Avieson, Fiona Giles and Sue Joseph, 2018

Childhood is a rich and fertile terrain for the writing of memoir. Not only does it deliver deep, intense memories filled with sensory information, it also often provides these details in the idiosyncratic language and mis/understandings of a child. To approach these narratives with the wisdom, experience and world-weariness of adulthood is to experience the frisson of re-entering a moment of life which is closed forever and can never be regained in quite the same way, except tangentially or vicariously (and often through this genre). Childhood memoirs of apartheid-era South Africa written by both black and white authors evoke this same intensity all childhood memoirs are capable of. But their imbeddedness in a historical moment now passed lends them the supplementary aura of testimony and quasi-history. This is especially the case when the author is black and has suffered the deprivations of apartheid oppression and the experience of listening to a voice intended to be silenced imparts an extra thrill to the writing. In addition, in parts of the world like South Africa, for women and for black authors, writing memoir or autobiography is often the route to becoming a published writer with recognition and worth, and therefore memoir is also a significant and important vehicle for self-expression and livelihood. South Africa is awash in memoirs both of the formal, edited, published kind and the family stories which are often self-published and of varying quality (see Nixon 2012 for an assessment of the " boom " in nonfiction writing in the post-apartheid era). Many evoke the rich intensity of lives under apartheid as well as the features of testimonial. However, my interest is in childhood narratives that have been written from the vantage point of the post-apartheid moment, which gives the added charge of reaching across a political gulf to explain why childhoods under apartheid might yet have been vivid and extraordinary. This possibility in itself (and readers' present-day enjoyment of such stories) creates a political/social dissonance – of the sort that unsettles the notion that the apartheid era was entirely without joy or fun. This element makes these texts very fascinating to study and to place within the broader genre of memoir. A few of these stories have been met with both critical acclaim and anger and dismay as they are understood by some readers to be making light of the sufferings meted out under apartheid and also of the atrocity of apartheid itself. My argument is that these stories are necessary additions and corrections to the solidified narrative of life under apartheid for black South Africans, which has become, borrowing the insight and words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009), a dangerous " single story ". Theorists who deal with memoirs rooted in experiences of colonialism – and apartheid is a form of 'late' colonialism, see Mamdani 1996 – point out that these narratives are important texts to study. In particular those who study " settler " autobiographies (Baena 2009 and Whitlock 2000) are very interesting because they offer insights into the complexities of such childhood narratives that are not often evident in other studies of memoir and memory. Baena asserts that by paying attention to childhood stories other facets – other than those that come through official history – of life under empire are illuminated. Whitlock argues that the tension between history and myth, between colonised spaces and sweet places, tells us less about childhood subjectivity than the use of the idea of childhood in remembrances of things past in autobiography, and ways in which this stands " in vibrant relation " to the present (2000: 182).

2012

Drawing on broader discussions that attempt to envision new ways of negotiating identity, nationalism and race in a post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa, this thesis examines how whiteness is constructed and negotiated within the framework of literary-journalistic narratives. It is significant that so many established journalists have chosen a literary format, in which they use the structure, conventions, form and style of the novel, while clearly foregrounding their journalistic priorities, to re-imagine possibilities for narratives of identity and belonging for white South Africans. I argue that by working at the interstice of literature and journalism, writers are able to open new rhetorical spaces in which white South African identity can be interrogated. This thesis examines the literary narratives of Rian Malan (My Traitor’s Heart, 1991), Antjie Krog (Country of My Skull, 1998, and Begging to be Black, 2009), Kevin Bloom (Ways of Staying, 2009) and Jonny Steinberg (Midlands, 2002). These writers all seem to grapple with the recurring themes of ‘history’, ‘narrative’ and ‘identity’, and in exploring the narratives of their personal and national history, they attempt to make sense of their current situation. The texts that this thesis examines exhibit an acute awareness of the necessity of bringing whiteness into conversation with ‘other’ identities, and thus I explore both the ways in which that is attempted and the degree to which the texts succeed, in their respective projects. I also examine what literary genres offer these journalists in their engagement with issues of whiteness and white identity that conventional forms of journalism do not. These writers are challenging the conventions of genre – both literary and journalistic – during a period of social and political flux, and I argue that in attempting to limn new narrative forms, they are in fact outlining new possibilities for white identities and ways of belonging and speaking. However, a close reading of these literary-journalistic narratives reveals whiteness in post-apartheid South African to be a multifaceted and often contradictory construct and position. Despite the lingering privilege and structural advantage associated with whiteness, South African whiteness appears strongly characterised by a deep-seated anxiety that stems from a perpetual sense of ‘un-belonging’. However, while white skin remains a significant marker of identity, there does appear to be the possibility of moving beyond whiteness into positions of hybridity which offer interesting potential for ‘becoming-other’.

Whatever its critics have had to say about its role and effectiveness, the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) -set up by the National Unity and Reconciliation Act -has exercised an incalculable influence on political, social and cultural forms in the post-apartheid period. There are those who would question whether the society can, even yet, be described as "post-apartheid" but it is nevertheless true that an extensive range of cultural activity has produced a number of attempts to generate a new set of discourses in narrative forms which are designed to create a radically different political imaginary in the country. As many commentators have noted, the predominant discursive medium of the TRC was a set of complex, multiple and contested narratives in which conflicting voices, hidden and silenced for many years, for the first time made a bid for a symbolic presence in a social order which had denied their existence for so long. Although the TRC involved a significant amount of empirical enquiry and expert, in-depth investigation, what figured most prominently in its public manifestations at different venues throughout the country, and on television and radio, were, mostly, individual and community narratives of violence, humiliation and exclusion brought about by the social division of the political grammar of Afrikaner hegemony. As Michael Ignatieff has argued, truth commissions can and do change the frame of public discourse and public memory but how long it might take to change the affective and material base of a society is another issue.

ARIEL: a review of interanational english literature, 2008

This review article addresses the increasing dominance of works of creative nonfiction as sources of the most incisive commentary on post-apartheid South Africa. Reviewing recent work by Lindie Koorts, Jacob Dlamini and Jonny Steinberg, the article highlights the use of the biographical mode of creative nonfiction to induce a reconsideration of the past and present. By placing an individual at the centre of their narratives, these authors tender a humanising narrative which challenges simplistic interpretations of the past and reactions in the present.

Psychology in Society, 2010

This article explores the socio-political imperative and psychosocial value of re-engaging and expanding the apartheid archive in contemporary South Africa. It suggests that this archive's entanglement with de facto official histories of South Africa has resulted in certain elisions ...

Social Dynamics, 2019

Reflecting on narratives collected as part of the Apartheid Archive Project, a memory project of "ordinary" experiences of living under apartheid, this paper engages with stories that articulate white South Africans' shame/ful relationships with Black female domestic workers. It is increasingly of concern that the dominant response to apartheid abuses are to consider them "in the past" in order to avoid discomforting reminders. Shame and its silencing effect, as feminist and other critical literature shows, is bound up with relations of power, legitimating privilege and subjugation. Yet, shame may also be deployed as narrative strategy to deal with subjective discomfort and guilt by those seeking to disentangle themselves from association with social privilege and its abuses. How do we respond to narratives that may have both effects? Drawing on contemporary critical pedagogies, such as the work of Zembylas that specifically engage with the affective turn, and guided by Probyn's argument that shame is a powerful resource of social critique, this paper suggests productive possibilities of such narratives in contemporary South Africa. While acknowledging contestations, an argument is made for the value of stories of shame/ shaming towards troubling the erasure of apartheid and its continuities in the present while also disrupting the denial of historical and current complicity with power and privilege.

The Sociological Quarterly, 2018

Evidence suggests that some black residents in South Africa experience nostalgia for the racist and authoritarian apartheid regime. What dynamics generate apartheid nostalgia, and what work does it do? This article draws on in-depth interviews with black residents of impoverished urban townships and informal settlements. I argue that by eliminating formal racial discrimination and redirecting popular aspirations towards the state, South Africa’s democratic transition encouraged apartheid nostalgia, which residents deployed to criticize the post-apartheid state and imagine alternative possibilities. Far from uniform, nostalgic expressions focused on four objects: social protection, migrant exclusion, bureaucratic integrity, and white governance. Each object represented an aspect of the apartheid state that residents sought to resurrect. The analysis calls for a shift from a politics of regret, focused on shame for past atrocities, to a politics of nostalgia, which understands idealized projections of past objects as a terrain of struggle.

Current Sociology, 2004

S ince 1948, South African society has been in a unique trajectory in its development. That year, the newly formed National Party officially introduced the ideology of apartheid as the philosophical framework within which the white Afrikaner-dominated government was to administer its policies. In essence, apartheid meant the separate 'development' of the various racialized groups of South Africa. The ideology of separateness, which created unjust privilege for the minority white population, was accompanied by an uneven pattern of institutionally entrenched development in economic, social, cultural, and in particular educational opportunities between the white, black, coloured and Indian 'population groups'. With a few exceptions, the language of sociology that emerged as apartheid's cultural capital became singularly known for its lack of in-depth analysis of social issues, particularly as experienced by black communities. To begin with, sociological analysis and interpretation were largely driven by white academics, who in turn became the mediators to so-called black people's responses to the ideology of apartheid. To do sociology was to struggle to name, mark and control the phenomenon of black politics and its subjects. It was not unusual to find texts that objectified and homogenized black people, describing their struggles as violent and without visionary purpose. This narrow sociologism of the apartheid era was also manifest in its focus of study. Like many other academic disciplines with middle-class origins, sociology in South Africa was made synonymous with studying urban and proletarianized black people. Generally, very few studies committed themselves to studying the dynamics of black rural lives and politics, including the ever-changing dialectic between the urban and rural. Within