the south african short story by black writers

357 Pages·2008·1.53 MB·English

by  Information Technology

WRITING BLACK: THE SOUTH AFRICAN SHORT
STORY BY BLACK WRITERS

Rob Gaylard

Dissertation presented for the degree of Doctor of Literature at the
University of Stellenbosch

Promotor: Professor Annie Gagiano
March 2008
ii

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the work contained in this dissertation is
my own original work and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part
submitted it to any university for a degree.

Signature:……………………………………. Date:……………………….
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ABSTRACT

This study attempts a re-reading and re-evaluation of the work of black South
African short story writers from R.R.R. Dhlomo (circa 1930) to Zoë Wicomb (at the
end of the 1980s). The short story, along with the autobiography, was the dominant
genre of black writing during this period, and the reasons for this are examined, as
well as the ways in which black writers adapt or transform this familiar literary genre.
The title – “Writing Black” – alludes to well-known works by Richard Rive (Writing
Black) and J.M. Coetzee (White Writing), and foregrounds the issue of race and
racialised identities. While one would not want to neglect other factors (class, gender),
it is hardly possible to underestimate the impact of racial classification during the
apartheid era. However, the difficulty of asserting the unproblematic existence of a
homogeneous “black” identity also becomes evident.
The approach adopted here reflects the need to recognise both the singularity
of particular texts (their “literariness”) as well as their embeddedness in their
particular place and time (their “worldliness” or their “circumstantiality”). Literary
texts are complex verbal artefacts of an unusual kind, but they cannot be separated
from their contexts of production and reception; black writing in this country would
be largely incomprehensible if this were not taken into account. Close attention is
given to the obvious spatial, temporal and ideological shifts in South African cultural
production during this period, and to the two major phases of black writing (the
Sophiatown and District Six writers of the 50s, and the Staffrider writers of the 70s
and 80s). The work of these writers is not, however, subsumed into a political meta-
narrative. In particular, this study resists the tendency to lump the work of black
writers into one large, undifferentiated category (“protest writing” or “spectacular”
representation). This approach has had the effect of flattening out or homogenising a
body of work that is much more varied and interesting than many critical accounts
would suggest. Finally, the contribution of three writers of the “interregnum”
(Ndebele, Matlou, Wicomb) is explored. What is of particular interest is their break
from established conventions of representation: their work reveals a willingness to
resist over-simplification, to experiment, and to explore issues of identity and gender.
By examining these texts from the vantage point of the post-apartheid present, one is
able to arrive at an enhanced understanding of the form that black writing took under
apartheid, and the pressures to which it was responding.
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OPSOMMING

Hierdie studie onderneem ‘n her-lesing en herevaluering van die werk van
swart Suid-Afrikaanse kortverhaalskrywers – vanaf R.R.R.Dhlomo (circa 1930) tot
Zoë Wicomb (aan die einde van die 1980s). Die kortverhaal, tesame met die
outobiografie, was die dominante genre van swart skryfkuns gedurende hierdie
tydperk. Die redes hiervoor word in die tesis ondersoek, sowel as die maniere waarop
swart skrywers hierdie familiêre literêre genre aangepas of hervorm het. Die titel –
“Writing Black” – verwys na welbekende werke deur Richard Rive (Writing Black)
en J.M. Coetzee (White Writing) – en stel die kwessies van ras en ras-beïnvloede
identiteit voorop. Terwyl ‘n navorser nie ander faktore (bv. klas; geslag) wil afskeep
nie, is dit skaars moontlik om die impak van rasseklassifikasie gedurende die
apartheid-era te oorskat. Desnieteenstaande is dit duidelik dat die idee van ‘n
ongedifferensieerde “swart” identiteit nie ‘n akademies haalbare aanspraak is nie.
Die vertrekpunt wat hier gebruik word reflekteer die vereistes om die
individualiteit van sekere tekste (hul “letterkundigheid”) sowel as hul verbondenheid
tot ‘n spesifieke plek en tyd (d.w.s. hul “wêreldsheid” of “omstandigheidsoorsprong”)
te erken. Literêre tekste is komplekse verbale artefakte van ‘n ongewone aard, maar
kan nogtans nie losgemaak word van hul kontekste van produksie en ontvangs nie;
swart skrywers van Suid-Afrika se werk sou grotendeels onverstaanbaar gewees het
indien hierdie faktore nie in ag geneem sou word nie. Versigtige aandag word in die
studie gegee aan die herkenbare ruimtelike, temporale en ideologiese verskuiwings in
Suid-Afrikaanse kulturele produksie gedurende hierdie tydperk, asook aan die
belangrikste fases van swart skryfwerk (die Sophiatown- en Distrik Ses-skrywers van
vyftigerjare en die Staffrider skrywers van die sewentigs en tagtigs). Die werk van
hierdie skrywers word nogtans nie onderwep aan ‘n politieke meta-narratief nie. Die
neiging om die werk van swart skrywers as een groot, ongedifferensieerde kategorie
(bv. protes-skrywing of spektakulêre uitbeelding) saam te gooi, word spesifiek
teengestaan in hierdie tesis. So ‘n benadering het die effek van verplatting of
homogenisering van ‘n skryfgebied wat veel meer gedifferensieerd en interessant is as
wat menige kritici se beskrywings suggereer. Laastens word die bydraes van die
skrywers van die “oorgangstydperk” (Ndebele, Matlou, Wicomb) ondersoek. Wat
veral interessant is, is hoe hulle wegbreek van konvensies van uitbeelding: hul werk
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vertoon hul bereidwilligheid om oorvereenvoudiging te weerstaan, te eksperimenteer,
en om identiteits- en gender-kwessies te ondersoek. Deur hierdie tekste vanuit die
perspektief van die post-apartheid hede te benader, kan die studie ‘n beter begrip
vorm van die vorme wat swart skryfwerk onder apartheid aangeneem het, sowel as
van die kragte waarteen dit gereageer het.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my promotor, Professor Annie Gagiano for her professionalism,
expertise and support. Her promptness and attention to detail are much appreciated.

I would also like to thank the University of Stellenbosch for granting two periods of
study leave. This enabled me to give this thesis my sustained attention and bring it to
a conclusion.

This study is a product of my work over a number of years in this research field. I
offer an Honours course, entitled “From Sophiatown to Soweto”, and the responses
and input of postgraduate students to this course have also been a valuable stimulus.

Finally, I would like to thank Miki for her unstinting support, and my children for
putting up with “it” (and me).
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CONTENTS

Abstract iii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Chapter 2: R.R.R. Dhlomo and Early Black Writing in English 36

Chapter 3: Drum, Sophiatown and the Fifties 58

Chapter 4: Drum: the Stories 80

Chapter 5: The District Six Writers – the “Protest School”? 133

Chapter 6: Post-Sharpeville 179

Chapter 7: The Rise of Black Consciousness 196

Chapter 8: Staffrider and the 1970s 220

Chapter 9: Writing in the Interregnum 272

Chapter 10: Conclusion 306

Appendix: “Mhlutshwa Comes to Johannesburg” 320

Bibliography 322
1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This study seeks to explore the achievements of a number of black writers whose
work has contributed significantly to the recent (post-1948) literature of this country.
One of the strongest genres of black writing is the short story (for reasons that will be
explored) and by viewing these texts from the vantage point of the post-apartheid
present, one may able to arrive at a better understanding of the form that black writing
took under apartheid, and the kinds of pressures to which it was responding. The
study will explore the way social, political and ideological as well as literary factors
have helped shape the form, content and style of the short story. While other critics
have studied particular phases of the development of the short story genre, or have
discussed black (South African) writing across the various genres, none has attempted
a study of the kind and scope envisaged here. 1948 marks the date of the election of
the National Party government under Dr D.F. Malan with a mandate to implement the
policy of apartheid, while February 1990 marks President de Klerk’s historic decision
to release Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners, unban the ANC, the PAC
and the SACP, and enter into negotiations. It thus marks the point of no return, the
date at which a transition to democracy became inevitable. These two dates therefore
define the parameters of the apartheid era: inevitably, then, a central focus of this
study is the impact of apartheid on black culture and writing in South Africa.1

Given the virtual implosion of “English studies” over the last thirty or so
years, anyone embarking on a project such as this can take little for granted. In
particular, one cannot assume agreement even on such a fundamental matter as the
meaning or appropriate use of the terms “literary” or “literature”. Nor can one assume
any self-evident justification for a study which selects literary texts as its focus. As
Wade points out,

The category of literature has in recent decades been vigorously
disrupted by a host of literary theories more concerned with retrieving

1 Once the study was underway I decided (for reasons that will become clear) to include a chapter on
the work of R.R.R. Dhlomo, whose short stories date from about 1930, and who is the most important
precursor of the Drum writers of the 1950s.
2
its denigrated exclusions – popular culture, marginal writings of many
kinds, orature and so on – and with revealing the ideological
assumptions implicated in the formations of literary canons. (6)

One must acknowledge at the outset the impossibility of arriving at any single or
generally agreed definition for the terms “literary” or “literature”. This is, as Docherty
puts it, “a search doomed to failure” (126-127); attempts to define or contest the terms
frequently turn out to be forms of special pleading for a particular approach to
literature. Perhaps the most that can be said is that there is a category, “literature”,
which, as it is commonly used, includes, typically, creative or imaginative writing or
works of fiction. (These terms are themselves, of course, problematic.) What follows
is an explanation of my own understanding and use of the term “literature”, and an
attempt to situate this in the context of literary studies in South Africa.
One way of characterising “literary” texts is to draw attention to what is
undoubtedly one of their most unusual features – their fictionality. This is of course
one of the oldest ways of characterising literature: although Aristotle and Plato arrive
at opposite estimations of the status or value of mimetic (or fictional) works, they both
recognise the peculiar status of fictional stories. Such stories (or texts) refer not to
things which have happened, or to actual or historical persons, but to things which
may happen, or to invented characters (hence the ambiguity of the Greek term for
fiction, pseudos, which can refer both to “lies” and to “invented stories”). Fictionality
entails the notion of invention, and this explains the subsequent attribution of
creativity or “imagination” to such works. Drawing on Searle’s speech act theory, J.
Hillis Miller talks about literature as “performative utterance” – a way of doing things
with words: “Every sentence in a literary work is part of a chain of performative
utterances opening out more and more of an imaginary realm initiated in the first
sentence” (38). It requires the active participation of the reader to actualise or realise
the virtual world created by the words – and this in turn entails a willingness to
suspend disbelief.
Many of the characteristics that have been attributed to literary works are in
fact linked to the idea of fictionality. Clearly, a fictional work is not subject to
ordinary tests of verifiability. Because it is fictional, it is also singular and unique, and
its “singularity” is often emphasised in recent theoretical discussion of “the literary”.
A good example is Attridge’s discussion of the topic: “At the heart of what I have
called the peculiar potency of literature . . . is its inseparability from two properties,
3
which we may call, without too much violence to normal usage, singularity and
inventiveness” (“Singular Events: Literature, Invention, and Performance” 49-50).
However, a literary text is also characterised by “exemplarity”: while it works through
the concrete and the particular, its characters and events are not tied to particular
referents in the real world, and so they are able to signify in a more general way. As
Culler reminds us, one term for this is “the concrete universal”, a concept which
captures “that special combination of particularity and generality that enables Hamlet,
for instance, to be more than a merely actual person” (“The Literary in Theory” 280).
This helps to explain claims have often been made for literature, originating in
Aristotle’s statement about “poetic truth” in the Poetics.2 In Culler’s words, “The
structure of literary works is such that it is easier to take them as telling us about the
human condition in general than to specify some narrower category they describe or
illuminate” (282). What, for example, is Hamlet (the play) about? What is Waiting for
the Barbarians about? Any number of possible or plausible answers could be and
have been given; the only certainty is that no answer can be final.
Another way of explaining this feature of literary texts is to say that their
meaning is not bound by a particular communicative context. According to Scholes,
in everyday acts of communication “a neutral, unliterary context is present,
phenomenal and concrete. That is, the context is present to both sender and receiver of
a given message” (156). An example would be where two people are both present in a
room, looking through a window, and one says, “It is raining.” Here there is little
room for doubt or ambiguity. If one were to read the same sentence in a novel, the
meaning would be quite different: “It is raining not in present reality but in a space we
have learned to call fictional” (156). This helps to explain why literary works are
endlessly open to interpretation, and why readers who are situated differently in space
or time cannot help but reread and reinterpret them.
It follows that one should question attempts to reduce the category of
“literature” to refer simply to “an unwarranted, elitist privileging of certain modes of
discourse” (Culler 280). It is easy to demonstrate that the term “literature” is
culturally produced, and that it has meant different things at different times – but it is
not necessary to concede (Stanley Fish notwithstanding) 3 that virtually any text could

2 “Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express
the universal, history the particular” (68).
3 I am thinking in particular of his chapter, “How to Recognise a Poem when You See One” (322-37).