Born in Africa but... [Elektronische Ressource] : women's poetry of post-apartheid South Africa in English / vorgelegt von Isabelle Vogt

Isabelle Vogt

Informations

• Publié par: ludwig-maximilians-universitat_munchen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 70
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

“Born in Africa but...”
–
Women’s poetry of post-Apartheid South Africa in English
Inaugural-Dissertation vorgelegt von
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades
der Philosophie Isabelle Vogt
an der aus Rottenburg am Neckar
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
München am 14. Oktober 2008Namen der Berichterstatter:
Prof. Dr. Helge Nowak
Prof. Dr. Horst Zander
Datum der mündlichen Prüfung:
09. 02. 2009Dedication
For my Family and Friends
I want to thank my supervisor Professor Helge Nowak from the Ludwig-
Maximilians-University in Munich for his thorough and patient assistance and
guidance. Additional thanks also go to Professor Horst Zander, my initial
supervisor, for starting the project with me, Professors Michael Chapman and
Sally-Ann Murray of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban and Professor
Geoffrey Haresnape of the University of Cape Town for their advice whenever it
was needed. I further owe deep gratitude to Thomas Brewster for proof-reading all
my chapters over and over again and for his never ending motivation and belief in
me and this study. Furthermore, I want to thank all the other people who
supported my work with whatever means as well as the wonderful poets whom I
1met during the past few years and who allowed me to use their work and photos.
Last but not least, I want to thank my South African friends, through whom I was
granted insight into the true contemporary South Africa, and my family, who
allowed and encouraged me to spend so much time abroad.
For the opportunity of exchange with other doctoral candidates I want to
thank the Munich “KHG Think Tank” and the “LMU excellence” Mentoring
Programme which accepted me as a member in September 2007 and with which I
could travel to a conference at the Venice International University in December
2007. The exchange with others always proved most enriching.
Last but not least, for their financial support and their faith in me and my
thesis I am deeply grateful to the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation. On top of the
interesting (international) seminars I participated in during the time I received
their scholarship from April 2006 till March 2008, they made it possible for me to
travel twice to South Africa to pursue my research and to attend various poetry
festivals around the country, indispensable for the progress of this dissertation.
1 Every attempt has been made to locate copyright holders for inclusion of all material not
in the public domain. If in certain cases I was unable to trace the copyright holder, I
would be grateful for any information that would enable me to do so.
Questions about copyright may be directed to [e-mail]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
I. A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO SOUTH AFRICA 12
I.1 SOUTH AFRICA’S HISTORY 14
I.2 APARTHEID 16
I.3 THE SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY 28
II. IDENTITY-FORMATION IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA 34
II.1 POSTCOLONIAL THEORIES AND THE POST-APARTHEID SEARCH FOR IDENTITY 35
II.2 ASPECTS OF IDENTITY IN SOUTH AFRICA 41
II.3 THE ‘COLOURED’ CASE 47
II.4 A COLOURED PLACE 53
III. POETRY IN SOUTH AFRICA 57
III.1 ‘INSTITUTIONS’ 61
III.1.1 Poetry journals 61
III.1.2 Contemporary women poets and publishers 63
III.1.3 Poetry awards and their recipients 65
III.1.4 Poetry festivals around South Africa 68
III.2 PERFORMANCE POETRY IN SOUTH AFRICA 72
III.3 THE POETS’ STYLE 79
III.4 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE CREATION OF AN IDENTITY 85
IV. SOUTH AFRICAN POETS 93
IV.1 MALE POETS IN SOUTH AFRICA: SETTING THE SCENE 93
IV.2 WOMEN POETS IN SOUTH AFRICA BEFORE 1994 107
IV.3 A PERSONAL VIEW ON AFRICA, PAST AND PRESENT: MALIKA NDLOVU 112
IV.3.1 Biographical context 112
IV.3.2 ‘Healing through creativity’ 121
V. MEMORIES OF APARTHEID IN WOMEN’S POETRY 123
-1-Introduction
THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN POST-APARTHEID POETRY 139
VI. SKIN-COLOUR AND BELONGING 140
VI.1 BEING BLACK AND A NEW VOICE 142
VI.2 BEING A WHITE WOMAN IN SOUTH AFRICA, YESTERDAY AND TODAY 179
VII. WOMANISM 189
VII.1 BEING A WOMAN IN SOUTH AFRICAN POETRY 191
VII.2 A PLACE CALLED ‘HOME’ 218
VIII. BEING AN ARTIST 231
VIII.1 WEAVE: W ’ E & A V E 231OMEN S DUCATION RTISTIC OICE XPRESSION
VIII.2 BEING AN ARTIST IN SOUTH AFRICAN POETRY 234
CONCLUSION 265
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN WRITERS 272
BIBLIOGRAPHY 280
PRIMARY LITERATURE 280
Poetry collections by women poets 280
Poetry collections by male poets 283
Poetry anthologies 285
SECONDARY LITERATURE 288
Quoted secondary literature 288
Further secondary literature 293
OTHER LITERATURE 300
Novels, short stories and plays 300
Journals 301
Festival programmes 302
CD recordings 303
Online literary magazines 304
CURRICULUM VITAE 311
-2-Introduction
Introduction
South Africa is on the tip of everyone’s tongue: Everyone has heard of Nelson
Mandela, an ‘A-list celebrity’ who is well-known worldwide, and three other
South African Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu and
Frederik de Klerk; of Charlize Theron, who got an Academy Award (Oscar) and a
Golden Globe in 2004 for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in the movie
2 3Monster; of the movie Tsotsi, based on the novel of the same name by Athol
Fugard, which won the Academy Award (Oscar) for the best Foreign Language
Film in 2005; of the country as a tourist destination, with its natural beauty,
4diverse landscapes and abundant wildlife; of South Africa as being the host
nation of the Football World Cup in 2010; and especially of the high crime rate
and the high incidence of HIV/Aids. Also in the literary world South Africa has a
reputation for the novels of Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee, the two Nobel
Prize winners for literature in 1991 and 2003.
Yet little is known abroad about South Africa’s rich contemporary poetic
tradition. Few studies have been published on contemporary South African poetry
and even less about South African women’s poetry, and that despite the fact that
the poetry scene in the country is extremely rich and vibrant.
The title of this dissertation on South African poetry reflects its limited
scope necessitated by the vast amount of literary material available.
The primary focus of this thesis is on women writers. The main reason for
this is, as has already been mentioned, that there are vast numbers of South
African women poets who produce a wealth of poetry, the existence of which is
largely unknown and where known, is greatly underestimated. Women’s poetry is
relatively under-represented in publications and anthologies. In most anthologies
poems by male writers outnumber those of women writers by far. This study has
been carried out against the background of this discrimination, which applies
doubly for women poets of colour, who are not only being marginalised, if not
2 Directed by Patty Jenkins, 2003.
3 Directed by Gavin Hood, 2005.
4 Shooting movies, video clips, photo shootings and advertisements in South Africa has
become a big business for the country.
-3-Introduction
disregarded entirely, because of their being women, but also for the fact that they
are of colour. Therefore, one of my chief aims in this dissertation is to give South
African women writers the attention they are due; especially, but not exclusively,
those black and coloured newcomers who are now so prominent on the literary
landscape.
Within the framework of giving exposure to women poets of all colours,
my survey and analysis serves as a descriptive introduction to fresh texts. It seeks
to broaden the scope of the research into South African literature as a whole by
completing the picture of South African poetry and by contributing to the
formation of a representative canon of poetry, which includes women poets.
In my effort to include poets of all of the ‘South African racial groups’:
Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Indians, I will, throughout this dissertation,
carefully refer to the people of South Africa in these terms coined during
Apartheid, as they are still used extensively by the South Africans of today.
Given that ethnicity, language and colour determined membership in state and
society in the recently abolished apartheid system, how can formerly excluded
5communities be recognised without perpetuating apartheid categorisations?
Naturally, my intention is neither to belittle those who suffered, nor to condone
the Apartheid system of ethnic classification. The fact is, however, that some
groups and individuals have a strong feeling of community with these groupings,
artificial as they may be, and unfortunately, even in the new South Africa, many
old habits linger on.
Although this study aims at giving a representative picture, the poets
chosen for review do not proportionally represent the ethnic elements of society
with which they are affiliated. For example, assuming that 75-80 percent of the
population is black, the same percentage of published South African poetry is not
written by Blacks. There are many reasons for this discrepancy: personal
connections, the role of luck in getting published, available funding, publicity, the
language of the poem etc. Unfortunately, many of these factors always have and
still do favour white poets. For this reas