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’n tydskrif vir afrika-letterkunde • a journal for african literature Adean van Dyk • Aghogho Akpome • Alwyn Roux • Andries Visagie • Bibi Burger Bridget Grogan • Christopher Wayne • Dan Wylie • Diana Ferrus • H. P. van Coller Hanah Chaga Mwaliwa • Hannelie Marx Knoetze • Heinrich Ohlhoff • Henning Pieterse Jean-Marie Dederen • Jennifer Mokakabye • Joan Hambidge • Laura Engels Loraine Prinsloo • Omeh Obasi Ngwoke • Rosemary Gray • Tycho Maas Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike • Wium van Zyl 55 (2) 2018 • Vierde reeks • Fourth series • Lente • Spring r LET vi TE F R I K R U K N S D D E Y T 1936 Tydskrif VIR LETTERKUNDE www.letterkunde.up.ac.zawww.letterkunde.up.ac.za Tydskrif VIR LETTERKUNDE ’n Tydskrif vir Afrika-letterkunde • A Journal for African Literature 55 (2) 2018 • Vierde reeks • Fourth series • Lente • Spring Eindredakteur / Editor-in-chief Hein Willemse U Pretoria (RSA) Redakteur / Editor Jacomien van Niekerk U Pretoria (RSA) Streeksredakteurs / Regional Editors Algemeen / General Willie Burger U Pretoria (RSA) Magreet de Lange U Utrecht (Nederlands / The Netherlands) Arabies / Arabic Muhammed Haron, U Botswana (Botswana) Frans / French Antoinette Tidjani Alou, U Abdou Moumoni (Niger) Kasongo M. Kapanga, U Richmond (VSA / USA) Oos-Afrika / East Africa Alex Wanjala, U Nairobi (Kenia / Kenya) Resensies / Reviews Andries Visagie, U Stellenbosch (RSA) Suider-Afrika / Southern Africa Susan Meyer, North West / Noordwes U (RSA) Lesibana Rafapa, Unisa (RSA) Wes-Afrika / West Africa Chiji Akoma, Villanova U (VSA / RSA) Isidore Diala, Imo State U (Nigerië / Nigeria) Administrasie / Administration Tercia Klopper, U Pretoria (RSA) Ontwerp en uitleg / Design and layout Hond BK/CC Cover photo by fivelocker Resensieredakteur Review editor Prof Andries Visagie Prof Andries Visagie Departement Afrikaans en Nederlands Department Afrikaans and Dutch Universiteit van Stellenbosch Stellenbosch University Matieland X1 Matieland X1 Stellenbosch 7602 Stellenbosch 7602 [email protected] [email protected] Borg: Marie Luttig Testamentêre Trust Sponsor: Marie Luttig Testamentêre Trust Nota / Note Tydskrif vir Letterkunde is vanaf uitgawe 54.1 (2017) slegs as e-joernaal beskikbaar by http://journals.assaf.org.za/tvl . Vir nadere besonderhede skakel [email protected]. From issue 54.1 (2017) Tydskrif vir Letterkunde is only available as an e-journal at http://journals.assaf.org.za/tvl . For further information email [email protected]. _______________________________________________ ISSN: 0041-476X E-ISSN: 2309-9070 GW / HSB 15–16, U Pretoria, Pretoria 0002 Tel: +27-12-420 4320 Faks/Fax: +27-12-420 3949 E-pos/Email: [email protected] Webblad / Website: http://journals.assaf.org.za/tvl INHOUDSOPGAWE TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 Child and youth protagonists in Habila’s Measuring Time and Dangor’s Bitter Fruit – Aghogho Akpome 21 Belonging in Thuis and 7de Laan: a critical whiteness studies perspective – Hannelie Marx Knoetze 39 Experimenting with a new tragic model: Elechi Amadi’s Isiburu – Omeh Obasi Ngwoke 57 “We are his children”: de Landmanfamilie als erfgenaam van Adamastor – Laura Engels 73 Redreaming ways of seeing: Ben Okri’s intuitive creativity – Rosemary Gray 91 Negotiating womanhood: the bird metaphor in Southern African folklore and rites of passage – Jean-Marie Dederen & Jennifer Mokakabye 104 Abjection in Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger – Christopher Wayne & Bridget Grogan 120 Modern Swahili: the integration of Arabic culture into Swahili literature – Hanah Chaga Mwaliwa 134 Land of cemetery: funereal images in the poetry of Musa Idris Okpanachi – Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike HULDEBLYK / TRIBUTE 146 Christo van Rensburg (1938–2018): akademikus van formaat – Heinrich Ohlhoff RESENSIE-ARTIKEL / REVIEW ARTICLE 148 ’n Boer in beton: Hierdie huis deur Kleinboer – H. P. van Coller RESENSIES / REVIEWS 170 Under Glass (Claire Robertson) — Dan Wylie 172 Queer Africa 2. New Stories (Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin, eds.) — Bibi Burger 174 The Keeper of the Kumm (Sylvia Vollenhoven) — Diana Ferrus 176 The History of Intimacy (Gabeba Baderoon) — Joan Hambidge 178 Toen met een lijst van nu errond. Herman de Coninck Biografie (Thomas Eyskens) — Wium van Zyl 180 Van kant gemaak (Kris van Steenberge, vertaal deur Fanie Olivier) — Tycho Maas 182 Die wêreld van die storie (Willie Burger) — Alwyn Roux 184 Dors (Marinda van Zyl) — Adean van Dyk 187 Alles begin met Anna (Annemari Coetser) — Loraine Prinsloo 189 Kroniek van turf (Dolf van Niekerk) — Adean van Dyk 191 Die dag is bros. Sandton City Grootdoop (Wessel Pretorius) — Andries Visagie 193 Gesant van die mispels. Gedigte by skilderye van Adriaen Coorte ca. 1659–1707 (Marlene van Niekerk) & In die stille agterkamer. Gedigte by skilderye van Jan Mankes 1889–1920 (Marlene van Niekerk) — Henning Pieterse Child and youth protagonists in Habila’s Measuring Time and Dangor’s Bitter Fruit Aghogho Akpome Aghogho Akpome is currently based at the Department of English, University of Zululand, South Africa. His main research interests include post-conflict narratives and recent post-colonial/African writing. Email: [email protected] DOI 10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.55i2.1783 Child and youth protagonists in Habila’s Measuring Time and Dangor’s Bitter Fruit Helon Habila’s Measuring Time (2007) and Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit (2001) deploy child and youth protagonists to offer nuanced and revealing perspectives on contemporary nationhood in Nigeria and South Africa respectively. By these means, these two important novels displace the adult—and mostly male—viewpoints that have dominated novelistic portrayals of postcolonial nationhood for decades. Using notions of the literary symbolism of childhood and the biological family as points of departure, this article analyses the portrayal of these protagonists in terms of their allegorical and metonymic representation of the nation as a social unit. This article explores the ways in which the subjectivities of the protagonists may reflect national anxieties in general and the problems of contemporary socio-political transition in particular. It highlights how the different pathways followed by Habila’s and Dangor’s characters may represent simultaneously dystopian and auspicious futures for Nigeria and South Africa while also bringing recent writing from two of Africa’s eminent literary sites into a rare conversation that helps to extend our understanding of the continent’s contemporary realities. Keywords: children, dystopia, family, nation, transition, youth. Although Helon Habila’s Measuring Time (2007) and Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit (2001) are not necessarily nationalist in outlook, they present marginal and nuanced perspectives on recent socio-political transitions in Nigeria and South Africa respec- tively by focusing on child and youth protagonists. They displace the adult—and mostly male—viewpoints that have dominated novelistic portrayals of postcolonial nationhood (see Hron 27–48). Told against historical and socio-political settings that are unambiguously national, and through allegorical and metonymic depictions of the family, each narrative maps the spaces, subjectivities, and temporalities of the nation in symbolic ways. The ubiquity of the trope of the biological family in national narratives and discourses across different regions and literary traditions is well docu- mented (see Brennan; Bhabha; Boehmer). As Anne McClintock (63) demonstrates, [n]ations are frequently figured through the iconography of familial and domestic space. The term “nation” derives from “nation”: to be born. We speak of nations as “motherlands” and “fatherlands”. Foreigners “adopt” countries that are not their na- tive homes, and are “naturalized” into the national family. We talk of the Family of Nations, of “homelands” and “native” lands. In Britain, immigration matters are dealt with at the Home Office; in the United States, the President and his wife are called the 4 TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 55 (2) • 2018 First Family. […] In this way, nations are symbolically figured as domestic genealogies. (original emphasis) With regard to the early novels of Achebe for example, Elleke Boehmer (187) has shown that nationalist awareness is dramatized through his narrativization of “family and compound life”. While Habila’s and Dangor’s narratives and their intellectual orientations are clearly different from Achebe’s, in their representation of Lamang’s family (in Measuring Time) and Silas’s family (in Bitter Fruit), the signifying links—in terms of the multidirectional synecdoche— between family and nation are powerfully evoked. The connection between the public sphere of the nation and the domestic relations of the respective families are highlighted by the specific history and poli- tics within which their individual filial interactions are framed. This provides scope for exploring the ways in which the portrayal of the Lamang and Ali families may reflect national anxieties in general, and the problems of socio-political transition in particular. It also highlights how the breakdown of these families (and other families in each novel), as well as the different pathways undertaken by members of these families, represent simultaneously dystopian and auspicious possibilities for Nigeria and South Africa.1 I analyse the representation of these families and their individual members beginning with the ways in which the subjectivities of the major child and youth protagonists are delineated, and how their perspectives on the principal themes of the novels are articulated.2 This