This dissertation consists of a short novel, Sea Creatures of the Southern Deep, accompanied by a preface. In the preface, I discuss some aspects of my own experience that have influenced the text. I also outline the development of the manuscript, illustrating the process of revision with excerpts from drafts of the novel. The novel itself is an account of a woman's loss and eventual recovery of a childhood vitality and sense of self. The story follows a protagonist, Anna (initially Joanna), from fearless childhood through troubled youth to adulthood. Through this narrative, I examine themes of loss, desire and identity within sexual and non-sexual relationships. After an opening passage describing an episode in childhood, the story finds Joanna at high school. Her ambivalent friendship with a classmate, Leah, and infatuation with a teenage boy, Robbie, are described. This section culminates in Robbie's drowning and Leah's disappearance. Subsequently, Joanna / Anna attends art school, where she starts an intense relationship with an older man, Alan. Her almost voyeuristic fascination with Alan is mirrored by her job photographing animals at the aquarium. Throughout, the sea and sea creatures signify those things that Anna both desires and fears. Leah returns, moves in with Anna, and eventually seduces Alan. Anna takes revenge by creating a photographic collage; through this act she symbolically "kills" her lover. In doing so, she frees herself from a damaging relationship, and is able to re- enter her life rejuvenated.

Talion is a work of fiction which follows four characters - Freya, whose brother Ben has recently been killed; Slick, a young drug dealer; Abraham, a school teacher; and Nolwazi, a Pretoria police detective - as they deal with the aftermath of a shooting in which they are all involved. Told is short, punchy chapters, the novel follows Freya as she begins to stalk Abraham, who she identifies as her brother's killer, Nolwazi as she tries to solve Ben's murder, a case she cannot give her full attention to, Slick as he tries to maintain his criminality in an increasingly uncontrollable world and Abraham, who must deal with the trauma of his lost family and the desire to protect his only daughter, Sophie. Not a crime novel - Nolwazi will never know the full truth of the case she's been working - but a novel about those who commit crimes and solve them, Talion attempts to capture the dark and messy consequences of grief and revenge, while examining the isolating nature of anger. It is a novel about connections and disconnections, justice and injustice. The novel uses the city as its narrator, hopefully rendering a version of Pretoria not often seen in South African fiction. Written within the spirit of classic tragedy, the tightly controlled plot and heightened tension, as well as the brutal violence, strives to create something more than your average detective novel. A literary and genre hybrid that is both entertaining and unusual, suspenseful and complex.

Human bones are discovered on the farm Hebron near Swaziland where two old women, Catherine and Maria, live. Their memories are stirred and disturbed by the discovery. Two young girls weave a close bond of friendship on the farm. Their childhood promises made in the tin church on the hill above Hebron are to have lasting repercussions on the shape of their lives. The church becomes their haven where they know they can always find each other. When Catherine's parents split up, and Catherine is taken to England, Maria still goes to the church, for there she is close to Catherine, and can see visions of her far away.

Me. Watch me. It's me. Can you see me? Look I am running now, and I can run fast, as fast as a car, you don't believe me? Watch me. Now, I am going to throw this ball to you, are you going to catch it? Catch it. Don't let it fall. Don't let it fall.

With Strange Aeons is a contemporary diaspora story of alienation and stark choices. Wome, a quiet Cameroonian university graduate has just moved to New York City from Rhode Island to take up a job. There, he meets Shokare, a combative nonconformist who challenges him to break free of the "African bubble" to which Wome has begun to attach himself. Not wholly persuaded, Wome is nevertheless drawn by Shokare's charisma and eclecticism. Wome's eyes are opened to the energy and possibilities of life in 1990s NewYork and, despite his shyness he becomes involved with a Canadian woman, which further complicates his sense of belonging.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-131). / At present, we are witnessing an exciting moment in African urban discourse, one that sees writers and theorists engaging with new avenues in which the African city can be configured and read. The discourse reflects and focuses on the myriad, creative ways in which African urbanites capitalise on their environments, exploring the kinds of challenges and freedoms generated by a life in the African city. Underlying this exploration is the notion that through the development of creative tactics, African urbanites can lay claim to agency amidst difficult conditions and can also shape their urban environments into flexible and enabling spaces. This approach challenges the idea that African cities are simply 'dysfunctional' or 'chaotic'. Simultaneously, this allows the stigma attached to the entire 'sign' of Africa to be challenged. The following study uses this basis of African urban discourse and applies it to a South African context. Indeed, one local urban centre that has always garnered a wealth of interest is the inner city of Johannesburg. Recent theory and research around African cities allows me to delve deeper into the intricacies of its social and geo-political landscape. The purpose of this is ultimately to shape a literary study. The discourse will aid me as I analyse two novels set in the inner city, namely Phaswane Mpe's Welcome to Our Hillbrow and Kgebteli Moele's Room 207. The theoretical framework creates a context in which I explore the impact of these two, post-apartheid novels. The texts also provide a crossover point that enables me to explore the ideas propagated by emerging African urban theory in depth. Both novels are realistic and semi- autobiographical accounts of life in the inner city. In a sense, the novels provide a semi-fictionalised 'ethnographic' frame for my research. This is not to imply that literature can challenge social theory or that the two naturally should correspond. What this approach does allow for is for me to show how valuable the writer is in this kind of environment, as well as how the city generates a particular kind of story and storytelling. Furthermore, it gives me a space in which the central tenets of African urban thought can be explored and applied in detail. For these reasons, the following research is multidisciplinary, using a range of social, urban theory to understand two creative, urban texts. The contribution it aims to make is to both to the field of literature and to the study of (South) African city spaces.

Includes bibliographical references.

LOCKS is the story of a young woman trying to take authorship of her life. Hers is one of three story·strands that interweave, each protagonist vying for personal significance within that plait. L's sphere of experience is contained within the room she has grown-up in, her only companion an elderly woman, Marmalade, who has educated her through the allegories of fairy tales. Unaware of an accessible outside world, all references to a world beyond her experience are relegated to the fairytale mythology of knights and slavering wolves.

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