Reading Against Race: J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Justin Cartwright’s White Lightning and Ivan Vladislaviƒ’s The Restless Supermarket

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that the treatment of race that one finds in J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), Justin Cartwright’s White Lightning (2002) and Ivan Vladislaviƒ’s The Restless Supermarket (2001), is premised on a recognition of the discursive inscription of the category of race in culture. These novels ponder the implications of the cultural basis of this trope by asking, for instance, whether nonracialism is a possibility that is open to the individual in a social context in which discourses of race prevail and, if not, how the individual may counter them. My essay examines not only the ways in which the novels under consideration articulate these questions, but also how they respond to them through a foregrounding of the culturally determined nature of reading.

Opsomming

In hierdie artikel voer ek aan dat die behandeling van ras wat aangetref word in J.M. Coetzee se Disgrace (1999), Justin Cartwright se White Lightning (2002) en Vladislaviƒ se The Restless Supermaket (2001) van die vooronderstelling van ‘n erkenning van die diskursiewe inskripsie van die kategorie ras in kultuur uitgaan. Hierdie romans oorweeg die implikasies van die kulturele basis van hierdie troop deur byvoorbeeld te vra of nie-rassehaat ‘n moontlikheid is wat oop is vir die individu in ‘n sosiale konteks waarin diskoers oor ras algemeen is, en indien nie, hoe die individu dit kan teenwerk. My artikel ondersoek nie slegs die wyses waarop tersaaklike romans hierdie vrae artikuleer nie, maar ook hoe hulle reageer op hierdie vrae deur die kultureel bepaalde aard van interpretasie op die voorgrond te bring.