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Post‐Apartheid Disgrace : Guilty Masculinities in White South African Writing
Author(s) -
Horrell Georgie
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2005.00103.x
Subject(s) - white (mutation) , shame , masculinity , restitution , gender studies , history , sociology , political science , law , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
In the aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa J. M. Coetzee writes of the ‘system’ of guilt and shame, debt and retribution which operates throughout society. He and writers like André Brink, Michiel Heyns and Troy Blacklaws tell stories which traverse and explore the paths tracked by society's quest for healing and restitution. This article considers a selection of transitional, contemporary white novels in South Africa in order to gesture towards discourses of both particular and global postcolonial significance, referring particularly to gender and representations of white masculinity in the post‐apartheid era.