Research Articles (English)
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Towards a Stylistic Re-Reading of John Eppel's Absent: The English Teacher
(Taylor & Francis, 2017-10-17)This paper seeks to articulate the reasons behind the structure and style John Eppel employs in his novel Absent: The English Teacher. Approaches to John Eppel’s creative works have been myopic and slight. Attention has ... -
Enmeshment of Zimbabwean law and literature in Petina Gappah’s Rotten Row (2016)
(JULACE, 2020)This article assesses the relationship between Zimbabwean literature and Zimbabwean law. This is done by closely reading two short stories, namely from Petina Gappah’s 2016 anthology “Rotten Row”. A discussion of the ... -
Patterson’s pornographic portraits: a deconstruction of the sex scenes in the novel the children of sisyphus
(AFRICAN JOURNALS ONLINE (AJOL), 2021-06)The literary depiction of sex, and by extension pornography, in early modern Caribbean literature has been neglected by literary academicians. Using Susan Sontag’s theorisation of the pornographic imagination, this paper ... -
The Contest for Space in Zimbabwean Literature. The case of the novel, The Uncertainty of Hope
(Academia.edu, 2021-06)The Uncertainty of Hope (2006) by Valerie Tagwira is a novel that offers profound insights into the condition of Zimbabweans during a time of crisis. Muchemwa (2013:128) argues that “Tagwira‘s novel is often read in one ... -
Male 'Somaliness' in diasporic contexts : Somali authors' evaluative evocations
(Department of Afrikaans, University of Pretoria, 2020-04-28)Addressing five texts by four Somali authors—Nuruddin Farah’s Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora (2000) and North of Dawn (2018) in juxtaposition with three novels by female Somali authors, i.e. Safi ... -
Okonkwo’s reincarnation : a comparison of Achebe’s Things fall apart and No longer at ease
(Purdue University Press, 2019)The reincarnation myth is a global concept, founded basically in religion and tradition. It was especially vibrant in the ancient times in places like Egypt, Greece, and in continents like Asia and Africa, which possess ... -
Power dynamics in writing consultations and potential lessons for teaching : an English Studies perspective
(Stellenbosch University, 2019-11-01)I initially wanted to be a writing consultant at Stellenbosch University’s Writing Lab when I applied to work as a tutor at the same university’s English Department. Having always been quite shy and introverted, I thought ... -
From a habit to a husband : representation of the intersection between religion and masculinities in John Ruganda’s play, The Burdens (1972)
(Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, University of the Western Cape, 2020)This paper examines how John Ruganda represents the intersection between religion and masculinities in his play, The Burdens (1972), which imagines an ex-Catholic nun marrying and bringing up a family. It argues that ... -
Ice-Candy-Man and In the Country of Men : the politics of cruelty and the witnessing child
(Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2010)Using two novels employing child narrators as observers of atrocities by which they are not only profoundly affected, but in which they become implicated (respectively by a Pakistani and a Libyan author), the article sets ... -
The emergence of black queer characters in three post-apartheid novels
(Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Association, 2019)Before the end of apartheid, queer lives were almost entirely unrepresented in public literary works in South Africa. Only after the fall of institutionalised apartheid could literature begin to look back at the role of ... -
Canine agents in two South African short stories
(Van Schaik Publishers, 2018)This article explores the role of the figure of the dog in two contemporary South African short stories. It considers the metaphorical-cum-allegorical significance of the textual animal in these texts, asking how the writers ... -
The boundaries of desire and intimacy in post-apartheid South African queer film : Oliver Hermanus's Skoonheid
(Department of Visual Arts, University of Pretoria, 2018)South African cinema is still dominated, both in terms of number and commercial success, by films featuring white Afrikaans-speaking characters. These films are mostly politically voiceless, ignoring the contentious racial ... -
Re-imagining family and gender roles in Aminatta Forna's Ancestor Stones
(Academy of Science of South Africa, 2017)This paper examines the interplay between polygyny and gender by exploring the way in which family structure and gender roles are negotiated, imagined and exercised in fiction. Aminatta Forna's Ancestor stones (2006) is ... -
'Taming untamed pests' : representing female sexualities in Tiyambe Zeleza's Smouldering charcoal and James Ng'ombe's Sugarcane with salt
(AOSIS Publishing, 2017-05-29)In this article, I explore a range of intersections between the ideological-material legacies of a dictatorial regime and representations of female sexuality in Malawian fiction. I am particularly interested in using ... -
'Speaking' and 'silence' in the memoirs of Petronella van Heerden
(AOSIS Publishing, 2017-04-28)Petronella van Heerden’s memoirs have received little academic attention. This article aims to contribute to the limited archive of research on her work to highlight women’s involvement in South African and Afrikaner ... -
Unhomeliness, unending phobias and liminality in Senait Mehari's Heart of Fire
(AOSIS Publishing, 2017-04-28)In Senait Mehari’s Heart of Fire, the legacy of childhood maltreatment is reproduced in the relationship between the father, Ghebrehiwet, and the daughter, Senait. A former victim of atrocity, Ghebrehiwet is a broken man ... -
To a dubious critical salvation : Etienne Leroux and the canons of South African English criticism
(University of Pretoria, 2015)This article presents a case study in cross-cultural literary reception following the act of literary translation-in this instance, of author Etienne Leroux-from Afrikaans into English. It describes the literary reception ... -
Two bad-time stories and a song of hope
(AOSIS Publishing, 2002-08)Using three fairly recently published South African texts – David B. Coplan’s In the Time of Cannibals – The Word Music of South Africa’s Basotho Migrants (1994); A.H.M. Scholtz’s Vatmaar – ’n Lewendagge verhaal van ’n ... -
Translating cultural transition in Kgebetli Moele’s "Room 207"
(AOSIS Publishing, 2010-07)This article deals with the issue of cultural translation in a postapartheid text through the analysis of language, setting and discourse to highlight cultural transition in a society where socio-political mutations ... -
Sustaining the imaginative life : mythology and fantasy in Neil Gaiman’s American gods
(AOSIS Publishing, 2006-12)This examination of “American gods” argues that mythology is the bedrock for creative and poetic expression in literature that explores and comments on the universality of contemporary human concerns in a world where ...
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