Making Use of History in New South African Fiction

Making Use of History in New South African Fiction PDF Author: Sten Pultz Moslund
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 9788772897844
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
A study of the use of history as political ammunition and literature as historical counter-discourse in Mongane Serote's "Gods of Our Time", Mike Nicol's "The Ibis Tapestry", and Zakes Mda's "Ways of Dying". Moslund shows how literary engagement with the past seeks to rupture the continuity of a strongly dichotomised epistemology and through that dissolve the inherited polarisation of society. Falsification of history is exposed as constructed discourse and past simplifications of reality as sharply demarcated into homogenous self-justifying, categorisations of, Us against Them, are challenged with paradox, doubt and introspection.

Making Use of History in New South African Fiction

Making Use of History in New South African Fiction PDF Author: Sten Pultz Moslund
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 9788772897844
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Get Book

Book Description
A study of the use of history as political ammunition and literature as historical counter-discourse in Mongane Serote's "Gods of Our Time", Mike Nicol's "The Ibis Tapestry", and Zakes Mda's "Ways of Dying". Moslund shows how literary engagement with the past seeks to rupture the continuity of a strongly dichotomised epistemology and through that dissolve the inherited polarisation of society. Falsification of history is exposed as constructed discourse and past simplifications of reality as sharply demarcated into homogenous self-justifying, categorisations of, Us against Them, are challenged with paradox, doubt and introspection.

The Cambridge History of South African Literature

The Cambridge History of South African Literature PDF Author: David Attwell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316175138
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1451

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Book Description
South Africa's unique history has produced literatures in many languages, in both oral and written forms, reflecting the diversity in the cultural histories and experiences of its people. The Cambridge History offers a comprehensive, multi-authored history of South African literature in all eleven official languages (and more minor ones) of the country, produced by a team of over forty international experts, including contributors from all of the major regions and language groups of South Africa. It will provide a complete portrait of South Africa's literary production, organised as a chronological history from the oral traditions existing before colonial settlement, to the post-apartheid revision of the past. In a field marked by controversy, this volume is more fully representative than any existing account of South Africa's literary history. It will make a unique contribution to Commonwealth, international and postcolonial studies and serve as a definitive reference work for decades to come.

Student Encyclopedia of African Literature

Student Encyclopedia of African Literature PDF Author: Douglas Killam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313054517
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
African literature is a vast subject of growing output and interest. Written especially for students, this book selectively surveys the topic in a clear and accessible way. Included are roughly 600 alphabetically arranged entries on writers, genres, and major works. Many entries cite works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Africa is a land of contrasts and of diverse cultures and traditions. It is also a land of conflict and creativity. The literature of the continent draws upon a fascinating body of oral traditions and lore and also reflects the political turmoil of the modern world. With the increased interest in cultural diversity and the growing centrality of Africa in world politics, African literature is figuring more and more prominently in the curriculum. This book helps students learn about the African literary achievement. Written expressly for students, this book is far more accessible than other reference works on the subject. Included are nearly 600 alphabetically arranged entries on authors, such as Chinua Achebe, Athol Fugard, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, and Wole Soyinka; major works, such as Things Fall Apart and Petals of Blood; and individual genres, such as the novel, drama, and poetry. Many entries cite works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.

The Past Coming to Roost in the Present

The Past Coming to Roost in the Present PDF Author: Adrian Knapp
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 3898216861
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
Since the final demise of apartheid in 1994, South Africa has undergone dramatic changes in the political, social, and economic sphere. It is not surprising that these changes have also resulted in contentious reassessments of recent history. Many contemporary South African writers have taken up the challenge and created works offering new ways of critically re-imagining the country's violent past. While André P. Brink's "Imaginings of Sand" and Zakes "Mda's Ways of Dying" constitute renegotiations of the past during the period of transition, J. M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" and Phaswane Mpe's "Welcome to our Hillbrow" represent deliberations of a past that has been hampered in its change by a flawed transition. Just as history can never be taken at face value and never constitutes a finite, all-inclusive narration of the past, the 'historical accounts' provided in these texts often present a one-sided picture of history when considered only on their representational level. On the metafictional level, however, these texts often put such 'misreadings' into perspective and, in doing so, open up an otherwise monochrome reflection of South Africa's rainbow.

Novel Histories

Novel Histories PDF Author: Michael Cawood Green
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This text is less a survey of the uses of history in modern South African fiction than a detailed claim for a kind of historical understanding which may emerge from fiction in the light of late-20th-century theory relating to both history and fiction.

Emerging Traditions

Emerging Traditions PDF Author: Vicki Briault Manus
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739148079
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
The monograph explores the linguistic impact of the colonial and postcolonial situations in South Africa on language policy, on literary production and especially on the stylistics of fiction by indigenous South Africans writing in English. A secondary concern is to investigate the present place of English in the multilingual spectrum of South African languages and to see how this worldly English relates to Global English, in the South African context. The introduction presents a socio-linguistic overview of South Africa from pre-historic times until the present, including language planning policies during and after the colonial era and a cursory review of how the difficulties encountered in implementing the Language Plan, provided for by the new South African constitution, impinge on the development of black South African English. Six chapters track the course of English in South Africa since the arrival of the British in 1795, considered from the point of view of the indigenous African population. The study focuses on ways in which indigenous authors 'indigenize' their writing, innovating and subverting stylistic conventions, including those of African orature, in order to bend language and genre towards their own culture and objectives. Each chapter corresponds to a briefly outlined historical period that is largely reflected in linguistic and literary developments. A small number of significant works for each period are discussed, one of which is selected for a case-study at the end of each chapter, where it is subjected to detailed stylistic analysis and appraised for the degree of indigenization or other linguistic or socio-historic influences on style. The methodology adopted is a linguistic approach to stylistics, focusing on indigenization of English, inspired by the work of Chantal Zabus in her book, The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel (2007, (1991)). The conclusion reappraises the original hypothesis - that the specific characteristics of South African literary production, including styles of writing, can be related to the political, social and economic context - in the light of many fresh insights; and discusses the place occupied by English in the cultural struggle of the formerly colonized peoples of South Africa.

Rugby and the South African Nation

Rugby and the South African Nation PDF Author: David Ross Black
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719049323
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Conventional historical and political analyses of South Africa have frequently neglected the vital role of sport in general, and rugby in particular. This book fills the gap through a critical interpretation of rugby's role in the development of white society, its role in shaping significant social divisions, and its centrality to the apartheid era "power elite".

Unsettled History

Unsettled History PDF Author: Leslie Witz
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047212255X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Unsettled History examines South African society and the construction and presentation of its public pasts, from Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 to South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup ®. Conventionally represented as a time of rectifying the silences and distortions of settler history through inclusion and recovery, the focus here instead is on the shifts in processes and locations of historicizing and the unsettled state of categories of framing history in post-apartheid South Africa. This era saw fundamental transformations in the order of knowledge: from the academy to the public; from popular history to public history; from history-as-lesson to history-as-forum. Leslie Witz, Gary Minkley, and Ciraj Rassool take the reader to sites of historical production in which complex ideas about pasts are invoked, and navigate a path toward understanding the agencies of image-making and memory production. This volume is the outcome of the authors’ intensive collaborative research and engagement over twenty-five years on questions including the production and performance of apartheid history; the cultural politics of social history; South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and practices of orality; tourism as an arena of image-making and historical construction; museums as sites of heritage production for a new South Africa; photographs, archival meanings, and the construction of the social documentary; and the centenary commemorations of the South African War and the making of race. The authors not only witnessed many of these instances of history-making but were also participants in their constitution.

A New History for a New South Africa

A New History for a New South Africa PDF Author: June Bam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : South Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description


Long Walk to Freedom

Long Walk to Freedom PDF Author: Nelson Mandela
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 9780759521049
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
The book that inspired the major new motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. LONG WALK TO FREEDOM is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela tells the extraordinary story of his life--an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph.