“In This Place, at This Time”: Staging Female Bodies and Representing Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Mathilde Rogez

doi:10.25159/2412-8457/19201

Authors

Mathilde Rogez Université de Toulouse

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/2412-8457/19201

Keywords:

transmodal adaptation, performativity, rape, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, dialogism

Abstract

M. Coetzee, Craig Higginson, and Mike van Graan make use of transmodal interactions between the narrative mode of the novel and the theatrical idiom in several of their works, an interplay which inflects the representation of rape, as it foregrounds it, in the context of the enduring legacy of both apartheid and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Using close reading to show how this interplay between literary modes (drama and narrative) highlights their respective characteristics in representing women’s bodies and giving voice to their stories, this article will argue that such transmodal writing further allows for a singular experience (Attridge) of the works, which better makes heard the singular voice of women, as they too often remain the victims of what Pumla Dineo Gqola has shown to be a national nightmare in South Africa. It shall be seen that these works call on an active and fully embodied engagement with the texts: Their use of theatricality as enmeshed with narration calls for a reflection on the processes and notions of confession and testimony, also at the heart of the TRC, to disentangle the truth from fiction or lies. Ultimately, the authors, in their own literary practices, might be said to ask readers and viewers to “do” something to end rape (Gqola).

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