"In assembling the information necessary for a study of a writer such as Stuart Cloete, a neophyte librarian will not only become better acquainted with the life and work of a well-known author but will also gain a useful working knowledge of the major reference tools found in most libraries. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to bring together the available biographical and bibliographical materials concerning Stuart Cloete, his life and work. The first part of the paper will consist of an account of Stuart Cloete's life. The second part will contain a brief description of his books included in Book Review Digest, together with reports of the reviewers' reactions to these works"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "January, 1960." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Sarah Rebecca Reed, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-48).

Thesis (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains i, 81 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-81).

During the era of discrimination and disparity in Southern Africa, racial inequality silenced many black writers. It was the white authors that dominated the literary environment presenting their biased views on social and political concerns; the black authors standpoints were seen as unimportant and they were deemed inferior to the white authors. Consequently, it was particularly difficult for black writers to voice their experiences of living in a society riddled with oppression, prejudice and unequal opportunities. The purpose of this study is to critically compare selected texts by African authors Doris Lessing and Bessie Head, which depict the political and social struggles within Southern African society during the era of unequal opportunities. Lessing and Head’s works present incidents of life experiences in Southern Africa from two contrasting viewpoints. The selected texts explored are: The Grass is Singing and “The Old Chief Mshlanga” by Doris Lessing, a white author, in contrast and comparison to the texts: A Question of Power and “The Collector of Treasures” by Bessie Head, a coloured author. The research for this thesis is conducted from an ethnic literary perspective with careful consideration to critical race theory and cultural studies. From this perspective, the focus of the study is on the struggles that affected both the victim and perpetrator during the apartheid era as well as on the idea that those in power determined what was deemed acceptable and unacceptable, behaviourally and ideologically. Specifically, the plight experienced by the female characters living in a patriarchal society, and the segregation and racial inequality faced by the characters of colour is explored by analysing these characters’ influences, pressures and societal manipulations and constraints in the texts. Thus, this study will provide a more in-depth understanding of Southern African society during the apartheid era and the strategic use of literature to spotlight the subjugation and disparity.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis takes as its subject matter a small field of activity in South African fiction in English, a field which I provisionally title the post-transitional moment. It brings together several works of literature that were published between 2004 and 2011. In so doing, it recognises that there can be no delineation of the field except in the most tenuous of senses: as Michael Chapman asserts, such “phases of chronology are ordering conveniences rather than neatly separable entities” (South African Literature 2). In attempting to take a reading of this field, I draw on discussions of the innumerable post-transitional flows and trajectories of meaning advanced by critical scholars such as Ashraf Jamal, Sarah Nuttall, Louise Bethlehem and others. In this thesis, I trace the “enigmatic and acategorical” (Jamal, “Bullet Through the Church” 11) dimension of this field through several works by South African authors. These works are at once singular and communal in their expression: they are singular in the sense that they are unique literary events1; they are communal because they share a particular force in their writing, a force that resists thematic bestowing. The schism between these conflicting/contiguous poles forms the basis of this thesis. I examine the works of a diverse selection of South African authors, finding in them a common, if discontinuous, seam in their treatment of excess, by which I mean the irreducible surplus that always demarcates the limits of representation. I find that these works each engage a movement towards the aporetic moment opened up by their characters’ experience of the traumatic. To be sure, these particular works of literature are notable for their exploration of ideas of alterity, loss and the capacity for survival in the routines of ‘South African’ lives. I use literature as the primary site of navigation for this enquiry because, as the scholars cited above have observed, literature is often a generator of meanings and a space where complex ideas about identity are explored and played out through the medium of the everyday. I recognise here that in the post-transitional moment, literature’s affective capacity in the world of action is limited – in Simon Critchley’s terms, it is ‘almost nothing.’ My thesis seizes this almost as the site of exploration. Taking as its starting point the existential question ‘have we learnt to imagine ourselves in other ways?’ I propose a number of positions from which these post-transitional works of literature might be read. The first chapter attempts to give account of the theoretical problem that attends to the reading of that which exceeds language’s capacity to invest with meaning. I use works by Diane Awerbuck, Annelie Botes, Shaun Johnson and Kgebetli Moele to inform my argument. In the next chapter, I explicate the problem of excess via a reading of Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water (2009). I then trace the aporetic nature of Otherness as it occurs in J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime (2009), paying particular attention to the ways in which that novel performs a refusal of meaning. Finally, I read Ishtiyaq Shukri’s The Silent Minaret (2005) as a work that posits the failure of alterity as a launching point for future ethical action. The burden of this thesis, as I see it, lies in the apophastic nature of its subject matter. In embarking upon an exploration of the incommensurable, my argument is for an ethics of reading that seeks to explicate the ways in which literature works by thinking through its affective capacity the better to affirm its performative dimensions. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die onderwerp van hierdie proefskrif behels ‘n klein veld in Engelse Suid-Afrikaanse fiksie wat ek voorlopig met die term “post-oorgangsmoment” sal aandui. Dit bring verskeie letterkundige werke byeen wat tussen 2004 en 2011 gepubliseer is. Hierdie kunsmatige afbakening hou rekening met Michael Chapman se stelling dat “phrases of chronology are ordering conveniences rather than neatly separable entities” (South African Writing 2). In ‘n poging om hierdie aangeduide veld te lees, put ek heelwat uit besprekings wat tans gevoer word oor die ontelbare betekenistrajekte van die post-oorgangsmoment deur kritici soos Meg Samuelson, Leon de Kock, Ashraf Jamal, Sarah Nuttall, Louise Bethlehem en andere. In hierdie proefskrif skets ek die “enigmatic and acategorical” (Jamall, “Bullet” 11) aspekte van die aangeduide veld soos dit uiting vind in verskeie werke van Suid-Afrkaanse outeurs. Hierdie werke is terselfdertyd alleenstaande en gemeenskaplik in hul uitdrukking: hulle is alleenstaande omdat hulle unieke literêre gebeurtenisse verteenwoordig en gemeenskaplik omdat hulle ‘n spesifieke impuls deel, ‘n impuls wat tematiese kategorisering teenstaan. Die kloof tussen hierdie opponderende/naburige pole vorm die grondslag van hierdie proefskrif. Ek ondersoek die werk van ‘n diverse seleksie Suid-Afrikaanse outeurs en vind ‘n gemene, dog diskontinue, soom in die manier waarop hulle oorskot hanteer, dit wil sê, die onreduseerbare surplus wat alle representasie begrens. Ek vind dat hierdie werke elkeen ‘n weg na die aporetiese moment oopskryf deur die karakters se ervarings van trauma. Hierdie letterkundige werke word ook gekenmerk deur hulle verkenning van idees soos alteriteit, verlies en die oorlewingskapasiteit in die roetines van ‘Suid-Afrikaanse’ lewens. Ek gebruik literêre werke as die primêre navorsingsveld vir hierdie ondersoek aangesien die letterkunde dikwels as ‘n genereerder van betekenis dien en as ‘n ruimte funksioneer waar komplekse idees rondom identiteit deur die medium van die alledaagse verken kan word. Ek is bewus dat die letterkunde ‘n beperkte affektiewe kapasiteit in die wêreld van handeling in die post-oorgangsmoment besit – dit is bykans niks, soos Simon Critchley dit stel. My proefskrif betrek hierdie bykans as brandpunt vir die ondersoek. Ek stel verskeie posisies voor vanwaar hierdie post-oorgang literêre werke gelees kan word deur die beantwoording van die eksistensiële vraag of ons geleer het om onsself op ander maniere te verbeel as uitgangspunt te gebruik. Die eerste hoofstuk poog om die teoretiese probleem te omskryf wat ontstaan as ‘n mens probeer om die oorskot van taal se betekenisgewende vermoë te lees. In die daaropvolgende hoofstuk belig ek die probleem van oorskot deur Mark Behr se Kings of the Water (2009) te lees. Daarna skets ek die aporetiese aard van Andersheid soos dit in JM Coetzee se Summertime (2009) voorkom, deur spesifiek ook aandag te skenk aan die maniere waarop die roman ‘n weiering van betekenis aanbied. Laastens lees ek Ishtiyaq Shukri se The Silent Minaret (2005) as ‘n werk wat die mislukking van alteriteit as ‘n beginpunt gebruik om toekomstige etiese handelings te rig. Die hooftema van hierdie proefskrif lê myns insiens in die apofastiese aard van die onderwerpsmateriaal. Deur ‘n ondersoek na die onmeetbare te onderneem, staan ek ook ‘n bevrydings-etiek van lees voor wat poog om die manier waarop literêre tekste werk te verhelder deur die affektiewe vermoë van literêre tekste te bedink.

Thesis (DLitt (English))-University of Pretoria, 2008. / E-thesis record : Krueger, Anton Robert . Includes bibliographical references.

The aim of this thesis is to provide an introduction to the work of writer and journalist Harriet Ward, resident in the Eastern Cape from 1842 to 1848. She was a prolific correspondent to various periodicals published both in South Africa and in London. It would be true to say, to judge from the evidence, that she fulfilled a need felt by the British public for information on life and events in South Africa, and that she became the trusted guide of the middle-class reader. Her range covers reports from the frontiers of war, journalistic articles, memoirs, short stories, novels, autobiography, and editions of other writers' work. After the publication of her articles on the Seventh Frontier War (1846-7), she was recognised and respected as a commentator on the situation at the Eastern Cape, an unusual role for a woman at this time. She was also amongst the foremost victorian women writers published from the early eighteen forties until the end of the eighteen-fifties. Harriet Ward has left a vivid historical and sociological account of the Cape frontier, and her observations and judgements provide a hitherto virtually unknown perspective on an important part of South African history and letters. What makes her even more interesting, as this study seeks to show, is that she was far from conventional in her response to her new environment, both as as a woman and as a representative of a colonialist power. The record she has left of her thoughts on the people, landscape and situations of the time has the capacity to surprise the post-colonial literary critic and historian. Her struggle to find a discursive mode in which to express her consciousness of the oppression, patriarchal and colonial, of the marginalised, whether woman, indigene, Afrikaner, or creole, reveals a significantly transgressive or subversive response to the issues of the day. In re-discovering Harriet Ward, we are forced to reassess our assumptions regarding the period of colonial history to which she was a witness.

Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))—University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / The aim of this study is to investigate the position that has been allocated to women authors by literary theorists. Some literary theorists are of the opinion that the action of writing can be compared to fatherhood, ownership and being a creator, all of which are male dominated images. Women writers have historically been marginalized by literary theorists, since there is a perception that women cannot write because they are not male. Harold Bloom has postulated that a male writer looks to a precursor in order to write and find his own voice. Before the writer can claim his own, original voice, he must enter into an Oedipal battle with the precusor, and, figuratively speaking, ‘kill’ him in his writing. According to Gilbert & Gubar, who serve here as representatives of the feminist literary theorists, women writers make use of monsterlike figures which serve as metaphors for the inner battle they have to endure to put pen to paper. The problem, however, is that women writers have no (female) precursors to look to. Elaine Showalter postulates 4 models that women writers may use in search of a female precursor or female body of writing, but she does not offer a clear solution. I am of the opinion that women writers can identity with a female figure or role model. The figure that I propose is Scheherazade, a storytelling character from the Thousand and One Nights, who told stories for a thousand and one nights in order for escape death. I identify a few texts from international literature that make use of this figure, whether as a character in the text, a metaphor for the female character who tells stories or as a metaphor for the author herself. This study focuses on texts from 3 genres in Afrikaans literature, namely children’s stories, short stories and a novel. It appears from the analysis of the texts that women writers have successfully made use of the Scheherazade character, to address issues concerning the social role and position allocated to women by a patriarchial society. Along with this women writers’ search and longing for a voice of their own and their own identity gets highlighted with the use of a Scheherazade-like female character who tells stories. Lastly it became clear that this figure is also being used by women writers to contemplate the dynamics of writing and to contextualise the role that self-doubt and self-actualisation play in telling and writing stories. Scheherazade thus becomes a vehicle for finding a voice as well as agency.

Until recently much of the literature recording the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Eastern Cape focused purely on frontier conflict and missionary activity, ignoring the evolving culture of the colonized people. But as Somande Fikeni declares, “[i]t is important when celebrating the country’s heritage to look beyond battle sites, monuments and wars and to pay attention to South Africa’s intellectuals and knowledge producers” (quoted in Hollands 4). This is indeed the central purpose of my research. This thesis seeks to examine the influence of Christianity on early South African writing by Africans and the ambivalence with which Christianity is often treated in their work. In South Africa, as elsewhere in Africa, Christianity played a central role in the development of African literature through the influence of mission schools and printing presses. Thus from the outset the development of written literature was inseparable from the spread of Christianity. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writing by Africans reflects this: Christian idioms, biblical stories and images colour their work and yet are not employed unthinkingly. Each of the writers whom I will explore has a complex and at times ambivalent relationship with Christianity, and they use religious discourse for a variety of ends, some of them clearly at odds with their origins in the “civilizing mission” of Europe. According to Yunus Momoniat, “Their works . . . are the beginnings of an engagement not only with the world of words on a page, but also with the politics of literacy itself” (1). The subject of this research is three Xhosa writers from the Eastern Cape: the Reverend Tiyo Soga (1829-1871), the renowned novelist and “National Poet” S. E. K. Mqhayi (1875-1945), and the little-known poet Nontsizi Mgqwetho (Dates uknown, writings 1920-1929), who is described by Mbeki as “the most prolific woman Xhosa poet of the twentieth century” (6). The reason for focusing on the Eastern Cape is because the Xhosa “were the first Bantu people to be exposed to Christian proselytising and to receive a literate education” (Gerard 24). As a result much of the early literature in isiXhosa consisted of translations of the Bible and other Christian tracts, and such “improving” texts as Pilgrim’s Progress. In other words, it is in this work that the first roots of the influence of Christianity in southern Africa can be traced.

This thesis is concerned with how hybridity is created and interpreted by Herman Charles Bosman in his fiction and non-fiction. Bosman was a gifted writer and raconteur who captured the historical, socio-political context of his time by translating Afrikaans culture for the edification and pleasure of an English readership. Hennie Aucamp summed up this linguistic and cultural translation by pointing out that Bosman was a writer who acted as a “verbindingsteken” or hyphen (65) between Afrikaans and English. His texts contain many voices, and are therefore essentially hybrid. Firstly, by drawing on aspects of postcolonial theory, the terms ‘hybridity’, ‘culture’ and ‘identity’, are discussed. Homi Bhabha’s notion of ‘hybridity’ is the conceptual lens through which Bosman’s texts are viewed, and aspects of Mikhail Bakhtin’s cultural theory also serve the same function. Thereafter, biographies of Bosman are discussed in an effort to understand his hyphenated identity. Following this, specific attention is paid to a selection of Bosman’s essays, short stories, and a novel. Scholarly opinions aid interpretation of levels of hybridity in Bosman’s work. In analysing Bosman’s texts critically, it becomes clear that he believed in a united South Africa that acknowledged and accepted all races. However, analysis also reveals that there are some inconsistencies in Bosman’s personal views, as expressed particularly in his essays. His short stories do not contain the same contradictions. Critical analysis of the novel Willemsdorp attests that cultural hybridity is not always viewed as celebratory. It can also be a painful space where identities are split, living both inside and outside their environment, and subsequently marginalized. Bosman’s texts, although published decades ago, remain relevant today in post-apartheid South Africa as much of his writing can be seen as a record of historical events. His short stories and novels capture a confluence of languages, people and cultures. His essays illustrate a deep commitment to promoting South African culture and literature. When reading Bosman one is constantly reminded that differences are not only to be acknowledged, but embraced, in what he prophetically imagined as a hybrid, post-apartheid South African society.