The following dissertation considers the ways in which we have come to perceive of our post-apartheid South African urban spaces. It focusses on the representation of our contemporary urban spaces as I posit that they are re-imagined in the works of Phaswane Mpe, K.Sello Duiker, Nadine Gordimer and Lauren Beukes. In particular, it is concerned with the representation of Johannesburg, and specifically Hillbrow, in relation to the space of the rural, the suburban enclave and the city of Cape Town. I argue that while so-called urban ‘slums’ such as Hillbrow have been denigrated in the local imaginary, the texts that I have selected draw attention to the potentialities of such spaces. Rather than aspiring to ‘First World’ aesthetics of modernity then, we might come to see such spaces as Hillbrow anew, and even to learn from them as models, so as to better create more fully integrated and dynamic African cities.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 305-325). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.