Hospitality in Karel Schoeman’s Promised Land and Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull

Abstract

This essay places Karel Schoeman’s representation of an ethically stunted and uncompromising Afrikaner community in his novel, Promised Land (1978) in counterpoint to Antjie Krog’s efforts, in Country of My Skull (1999), to inaugurate a new ethics of representation in response to the demands and opportunities of the post-apartheid dispensation. We relate the two texts by reading them through the lens of Derrida’s seminar on the ethics of hospitality. First, we discuss Krog’s version of hospitality as an implicit response to the dynamics of moral myopia captured so vividly in Schoeman’s dystopian portrait of Afrikanerdom. Second, we address the purported plagiarism in Country of My Skull in the context of the protocols for hosting the voice of the other in those works defined as “creative non-fiction”. In our concluding discussion we shift our attention to the ethical implications of various practices of citation.

 Opsomming

In hierdie essay word Karel Schoeman se uitbeelding van 'n etnies agtergeblewe en onversetlike Afrikanergemeenskap in sy roman Promised Land (1978) gekontrasteer met Antjie Krog se poging in Country of My Skull (1999) om 'n nuwe etiek van verteenwoordiging uit reaksie op die eise en geleenthede van die postapartheids-bedeling in te wy. Ons bring die twee tekste met mekaar in verband deur hulle te lees deur die lens van Derrida se seminaar oor die etiek van gasvryheid. Eerstens bespreek ons Krog se weergawe van gasvryheid as 'n implisiete respons op die dinamiek van morele bysiendheid wat so helder vasgevang word in Schoeman se distopiese portret van die Afrikanerdom. Tweedens ondersoek ons die beweerde plagiaat in Country of My Skull in die konteks van die protokolle waarvolgens daar uiting gegee word aan die stem van die ander in werke wat as "skeppende niefiksie" gedefinieer word. In ons slotbespreking verskuif ons die aandag na die etiese implikasies van verskillende sitaatpraktyke.