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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Autobiography and the 'Power of Writing': Political Prison Writing in the Apartheid Era |
Author: | Gready, Paul |
Year: | 1993 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 19 |
Issue: | 3 |
Period: | September |
Pages: | 489-523 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | apartheid offences against national security literature autobiography Politics and Government Literature, Mass Media and the Press Law, Human Rights and Violence Ethnic and Race Relations |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636913 |
Abstract: | This article argues that to be a political prisoner is to be relentlessly rewritten within the official 'power of writing'. Apartheid's 'power of writing' served to isolate, to discredit, to destroy, to rewrite everything and everyone to serve a political end. Through such mediums as statements made during interrogation, legislation, the political trial and prison regulations, political prisoners in South Africa were rigorously and violently rewritten. And yet, challenging the enveloping apartheid lie were rival 'powers of writing'. While prisoners had little or no control over the manner in which they were captured and fixed in official writing, other forms, from scratched messages on cell walls to the writing of autobiographical accounts, provided a way of regaining control. This article analyses autobiographical prison writing by B. Breytenbach, M. Dingake, M. Dlamini, R. First, H. Lewin, E. Mashinini, I. Naidoo, M. Pheto, A. Sachs, and D. Zwelonke. Special attention is paid to the place of Robben Island in these writings. Notes, ref. |