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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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.

'The Art of Forgetting' is a novel in progress. It can be classified as a work of psychological fiction which adopts the form of a circular narrative. The story is set in Northern Wisconsin, USA. Part One takes place in a mental institution and examines the psychological landscape of Kai Hawkin, the protagonist, in response to events in her life; the precise nature of these events is not elaborated upon. Part Two traces her recent history and ends where Part One begins, thus giving background as to why Kai has been committed to psychiatric care. The setting for Part Two alternates between a Native American Indian reservation and a holiday town close by.

Includes summary.|Includes bibliographical references. / This study examines aspects of the creative writing process and some literary statements in Joan Hambidge’s novel Kladboek (2008). The possible guidance for beginner-poets present in the metafictional Kladboek is examined with reference to Fourie Botha’s collection of poetry titled Blikhoek (included), which came about during work done for a Creative Writing Masters degree from the University of Cape Town.