Sartre, Satire and Transcultural Affinity in Nthikeng Mohlele’s Revolutionaries’ House

Abstract

Nthikeng Mohlele’s eighth novel, Revolutionaries’ House (2024), emerges in uncanny synchrony with South Africa’s watershed 2024 elections, when the African National Congress – liberation movement turned ruling party – lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in 30 years. The broader zeitgeist of political disillusionment finds an echo in Mohlele’s protagonist, Winston, a popular politician who dramatically abandons the party and a privileged life to live rough on the streets of Johannesburg. Against the negative critical reception that views Revolutionaries’ House a failed political novel, we argue that this satirical novel, drawing on Sartrean philosophy, provokes the reader to rethink politics through the lens of existential ethics. We follow Winston’s trajectory beginning with his departure from power, to his self-confrontation and the lessons he learns from lovers and confidantes, to the final chapter where he sits on the threshold of return, poised for ethical re-engagement with the world. Instead of a manifesto, Revolutionaries’ House offers a vision of political praxis grounded in small, ethical acts and intimate connections. We conclude that its open-ended resolution gestures towards what Chielozona Eze describes as transcultural affinity, and aligns with Sartre’s notion of committed literature, a literature that entwines aesthetic creation with ethical and political engagement.