Shells on the Shores of Memory

Shells on the Shores of Memorydraws together South AfricanColouredand Indian narratives about different periods in South African history to show how the literary representation of the colonial and the apartheid period diverge and at times converge. In so doing, it addresses these narratives not merely in terms of their “post-coloniality” or “subalternity,” but rather through the prism of the inescapable significance of space and place for issues of South African identity formation and struggles. In addition to its thematic focus on the way in which the violence(s) and vulnerabilities that play out on both a public and an intimate level are contingent upon one’s socio-spatial environment, this study also approaches contradictory emotional responses such as pride, nostalgia, shame, or guilt as corollaries in the socio-spatial paradigm. Marrying insights from psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and poststructuralism, this book offers a fresh comparative approach to two disparate writing traditions and trajectories that have largely been kept separate in academic and public debate, thus enriching our understanding of post-apartheid literature and offering a valuable addition to the field of postcolonial studies.


CONTENTS

1 Introduction: Memory after Violence .............................................................. 1
1.1 Terminology: Ethnic and Race Labels ............................................................ 4
1.2 Violence(s), Vulnerability, and Shame ............................................................ 5

2 The (Un)speakability of Indian Ocean Slavery:
Yvette Christiansë’sUnconfessed................................................................... 15
2.1 Ambiguous Silences and Hertseer as Metaphor .............................................. 16
2.2 (Un)writing Violence through Autodiegesis .................................................... 25
2.3 Situational Ethics and the Predicament of Being a Mother and a Slave .......... 27
2.4 Sila’s Ambiguous Revenge Visions ................................................................ 31
2.5 Conclusion: What is dis-appearing? ................................................................ 35

3 (Re)writing Indian Indenture in South Africa:
Aziz Hassim’sRevenge of Kali....................................................................... 36
3.1 Aziz Hassim’sRevenge of Kaliand the Retrieval
of Natal’s Sugarcane Hills ............................................................................... 39
3.2 The (Un)speakability of the Female Experience of Indenture ......................... 40
3.3 Displacement and (Dis)empowerment: The Male Experience of Indenture
and the Indentured Diaspora ............................................................................ 45
3.4 Conclusion: Reclaiming the Indian Ocean Paradigm ...................................... 55

4 Odyssey of a Dissident District:
District Six Memorialisation and Literature .................................................... 57
4.1 The Wasteland of District Six ......................................................................... 57
4.2 Nostalgic Reminiscences: Cape Town’s District Six Museum ........................ 58
4.3 Emasculation and (Dis)empowerment in “Waiting for Leila”
and “A Walk in the Night” .............................................................................. 63
4.4 From Shameful Political Inertia to Political Transcendence
in La Guma and Dangor .................................................................................. 70
4.5 Nostalgia and Politics in Richard Rive’sBuckingham Palace........................ 73
4.6 Conclusion: Negotiating Deterministic Despair and Nostalgic Hope .............. 78

5 Memory, Loss, and Desire: Aziz Hassim’sThe Lotus People......................... 79
5.1 Speaking Up Against Apartheid: Indian Political Participation
and the Spirit of Satyagraha ............................................................................ 80
5.2 Black-on-Indian Violence: The 1949 Riots inThe Lotus People.................... 83
5.3 Place, Politics, and the Indian South African Diaspora ................................... 87
5.4 Mobility and Movement inThe Lotus People................................................. 91
5.5 Blood-Sacrifice-as-Duty and the Silencing of the Female Experience ............ 94
5.6 Conclusion: Retracing the Footprints of the Casbah
through Place and Politics ............................................................................... 101

6 Trauma, Torture, and Truth(fulness): Zoë Wicomb’sDavid’s Story............... 103
6.1 Gender Violence(s) and Torture inDavid’s Story........................................... 104
6.2 Unspeaking the Traumatised Body .................................................................. 115
6.3 Shameful Hybridity, Dismembered Bodies and Green-Eyed Griquas ............. 117
6.4 Conclusion: A Story to Pass on – Un-silencing Women
in the Narrative of Nation Building ................................................................. 124

7 Transition, Metamorphosis and the Hybrid Body:
Achmat Dangor’sKafka’s Curse..................................................................... 126
7.1 Persian Legends and Turkish Tales ................................................................. 126
7.2 Shameful Hybridity and Metamorphosis ......................................................... 128
7.3 Female Voices and (Dis)empowerment ........................................................... 135
7.4 Conclusion: Leaping toward Transformation .................................................. 138

8 Indian South African andColouredNarratives in Comparison:
Differences ...................................................................................................... 139
8.1 Writing (Post)Slavery South Africa / Writing the Indian Diaspora ................. 139
8.2 Spatial Rupture and its Consequences: Homeland Myth and Host(ile)Land /
Natal Alienation and (Forced) New Home Land ............................................. 141
8.3 Symbolic Violence: Indian Immigrants
and the Discourse of an “Asiatic Menace” / Scientific Racism
and the Discourse of “Miscegenation” ............................................................ 142
8.4 Intertextual Affiliations: Looking East / Looking West .................................. 143

9 Indian South African andColouredNarratives in Comparison:
Similarities ...................................................................................................... 146
9.1 Slavery and Indenture: (Dis)Empowerment
and “Ethical” Counter-Violence ...................................................................... 146
9.2 Removals Literature: Violence Turned in On Itself
and the Responsibility for Political Violence .................................................. 147
9.3 Transition Narratives and Paradigmatic Postcolonial Vulnerabilities:
The Internalisation of Objective Violence ....................................................... 151
9.4 Conclusion: Subaltern Violence(s) and Vulnerabilities ................................... 153

10 Discussion: Violence(s) Endured .................................................................... 155
10.1 The Interconnections between Shame, Body, and Place ................................. 155

11 Conclusion: Fragile Pathways towards Reconciliation .................................... 165

Works Cited ............................................................................................................. 168