Open AccessDie deurlopende koord
Author(s) -
Heilna Du Plooy
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
literator
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.126
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2219-8237
pISSN - 0258-2279
DOI - 10.4102/lit.v20i3.507
Subject(s) - historiography , textuality , narrative , metafiction , literature , history , narrative history , art , archaeology
The endless thread This article discusses the volume of short stories, Boereoorlogstories, which was compiled and edited by Jeanette Ferreira. The stories are all about the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) and though some of the stories simply retell history from the point of view of specific individuals, some of the stories are indeed fine examples of postmodernist fiction. In the best stories in the volume the narrators engage with history in a number of ways: by indicating the fallacies of historiography, by contrasting little narratives with the master narrative of official historical documents, by emphasizing the textuality of history and the necessity of retelling the past. Personalized history and personalized interpretations of historical facts and historical documents are used in attempting to find or create new identities. The use of historiographical metafiction enables these narrators to interact with a present which is so complex and still so near that it can only be approached indirectly through stories