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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No description available.

Includes abstract. / The concept of the traveller has changed considerably in Irish society over the last fifteen years. Traditionally, the traveller was either the emigrant, forced to leave Ireland to better himself, or the gypsy, marginalized since the time of the Famine (1846). Since the advent of the Celtic Tiger (1994), and the wealth and prosperity it brought, the new traveller is the immigrant or refugee who comes to Ireland because of the opportunities it offers. I also believe that the definition can be broadened to the Irish people themselves, who can learn to travel within their own space by embracing the multitude of cultures, ethnicities, languages and religions that are now a part of the society. In fact, the very definition of 'Irishness' is shifting and morphing away from the majority Catholic Celtic nation, to an exciting blend of otherness. We must become travellers by leaving our preconceived notions of 'the other' behind, and travelling out of our own personal narrative into the stories of others. In an attempt to show this shift in 'Irishness', and the difficulties it brings, this novel has been structured to echo the great Irish literary work Ulysses by James Joyce. While I am not so ludicrous as to compare my effort to Joyce's, I do not believe that any creative work deserves 'holy grail' status. Therefore, while my aims are far more minor than Joyce's, I felt that shadowing Ulysses would be a perfect way to contemporise the issues that still lie at the heart of the Irish psyche. Just as Joyce set his book on one day, June 16th 1904, The Traveller is set on June 16th 2004 (Centenary Year). In the same way as Joyce used 'The Odyssey' as a foundation for a reflection on the Irish society of 1904, The Traveller loosely recreates Ulysses in contemporary Dublin. Like Joyce, I see this as a way of creating a thread of continuity between the actions of a small group of people in a particular place and the wider historical context, as well as showing the archetypal nature of human relationships. The Traveller does not adhere slavishly to the plotline of Ulysses, but builds upon it, creating additional characters and transferring the original themes to a modern context. Where appropriate, I have echoed the style of certain chapters in Joyce's original, ego the soliloquy format for the last chapter. Where Joyce used the central character of Bloom, a Jewish advertising salesman of Hungarian extraction, my central character is Omar, a Muslim journalist of Egyptian descent. They both represent the outsider in their own time, and suffer from being born into a tradition/religion that is alien and threatening to the society in which they live. Neither is a hero in the Homeric sense, but ends up being one through ordinary humanity. In The Traveller, the character of Omar is key to exposing the difficulties faced by 'the stranger' , even one who is half Irish and has grown up in that society. His journey through one day indirectly illuminates the key themes of politics, religion, marginalisation and love, as do the characters of Kinch, Flora, and Bláithín.

Summary in English.

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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-215). / A collection of eleven short stories, grouped under the tit A Gift Stones. The key thematic concern is the portrayal of dysfunctional individuals contemplating loss. The author offers a definition of his understanding of dysfunctional in the introduction, and further elaborates on the concept of documentary realism. The author proposes the expression “Boer humour†as shorthand for a stylistic drift in recent South African fiction. The deficiencies of journalism apropos prose fiction are discussed, and the author also considers the influence of photography on his prose fiction.