This dissertation offers a literary-thematic investigation based on a postcolonial approach to the representation of the Khoisan and their descendants. I restricted my scope to selected Afrikaans novels at the centre of critical attention between between 1994 and 2014. Earlier novels in this period under discussion are Dolf van Niekerk’s Koms van die hyreën (1994), Willem Kotze’s Tsats van die Kalahari (1994), Die spoorsnyer (1994), Olifantjagters (1997) and Gif (2001) by Piet van Rooyen, plus Karel Schoeman’s Verkenning (1996). Later texts in the focus are Duiwelskloof (1998) and Bidsprinkaan (2005) by André P. Brink, Dalene Matthee’s Pieternella van die Kaap (2000), Eben Venter’s Santa Gamka (2009) and most recently, the Hertzog prize winner of 2015, Buys by Willem Anker (2014). Themes central to South African literature will form the focus of the research, namely intercultural interaction between the first inhabitants of South Africa and missionaries, the question of land ownership, the language motif, and the role of religion (indigenous versus Western belief systems). Attention will also be on more specific issues such as the nature of the relationship between the Khoisan and the colonisers, the characterization of the Khoisan by the selected white authors, as well as other contemporary debates. The secondary objective of the study is to review the historical presence of the Khoisan and their descendants as reflected through the fictional lense of these authors writing over the last two decades, since democratization of the regime in 1994. My focus is particularly on the substantial cultural contribution of the Khoi and the San, as reflected through their representation in fictional works. The question will be posed whether the portrayal of Khoisan characters in novels after 1994 is different from the portrayal in fiction before 1994? My hypothesis is that in the fictional representation one finds a move towards restoration of their human dignity, yet the fact remains that all the authors are white. A different study of fictional works by coloured writers (whose numbers as Afrikaans authors grew substantially after 1994), investigating their representation of the descendants of the Khoi and the San, would in all probability yield radically different results, as the white authors imagine the characters and their consciousness from outside the community and the racial group, whereas the coloured writers belong to the community and the group that they portray.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:29819 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | December, Peter |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Arts |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MA |
| Format | 99 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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