Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Africana Periodical Literature Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Reconciling racial revelations in post-apartheid South African literature
Author:Milazzo, Marzia
Year:2016
Periodical:Research in African Literatures (ISSN 0034-5210)
Volume:47
Issue:1
Pages:128-148
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:literature
race relations
racism
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v047/47.1.milazzo.pdf
Abstract:Offering a reading of Mongane Wally Serote's 'Revelations' (2010) alongside other recent novels by black South African writers, this essay answers calls for more careful analyses of the roles that race plays within post-apartheid literature and culture. As it questions the shift away from a concern with institutional racism and white supremacy that is evident in much contemporary South African criticism, the essay contends that post-apartheid literature is not only racially marked, but also continues to produce knowledge on racial inequality, racial ideology, and resistance. In the process, it illustrates that grappling with colorblindness challenges pervasive understandings of nonracialism, reconciliation, and post-1994 literature. Revelations portrays nonracialism and reconciliation as necessary and inevitable, yet shows that the discourses are in conflict with demands for equality and justice. Concurrently veiling and revealing paradoxes inherent in South Africa's dominant racial discourses from within, Serote's novel demonstrates that enforcing colorblindness is an act of epistemic violence: not even at the diegetic level is nonracialism achievable. Bibliogr., notes, ref, sum. [Journal abstract]
Views
Cover