Secular Blackness in Zoe Wicomb' s Short Stories

Abstract

This article submits that self-reclamation in Zoe Wicomb's short-story cycle, "You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town" and Other Stories, is revealed through storytelling. "Ritual enactment", the phrase that bell hooks uses to depict the kind of narrative that calls to mind the mediation of the images of black depersonalisation especially as it pertains to the corporal body, is used in this discussion to explore memory as a site of resistance. The argument is that narration in these stories invents a self that authenticates blackness via discursive and self-dialogised practices, and that these are evident also in a spectrum of voices in black social contexts. Throughout this discussion, memory is shown to be also acknowledging and navigating complicity inthat which is being critiqued.

Opsomming
In hierdie stuk word betoog dat selfherwinning in Zoe Wicomb se "You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town" and Other Stories deur vertelkuns geopenbaar word. "Rituele rolspel", die term wat bell hooks gebruik om hierdie soort vertellings voor te stel, word in hierdie bespreking gebruik om geheue as 'n weerstandsterrein te verken. Dit herinner aan die tussenkoms van die beelde van swart ontverpersoonliking, veral in soverre dit op die stoflike liggaam betrekking het. Die redenasie is dat die vertel van hierdie verhale 'n self versin wat swartheid via breedvoerige en selfverwekte dialoogpraktyke bekragtig en dat dit ook duidelik blyk uit 'n spektrum stemme in swart sosiale kontekste. Geheue word dwarsdeur hierdie bespreking getoon as sou dit ook die erkenning en naspeur van aandadigheid wees aan dit waarop kritiek gelewer word.