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Reinventing and Reimagining Johannesburg in Three Post-Apartheid South African Texts‖ Is My Own Original Work

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Reinventing and Reimagining Johannesburg in Three Post-Apartheid South African Texts‖ Is My Own Original Work REINVENTING AND REIMAGINING JOHANNESBURG IN THREE POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICAN TEXTS. By ANNE PUTTER Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS (ENGLISH) in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg. Supervisor: Dr Ronit Frenkel Date: February 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Abstract iii 2. Declaration iv 3. Acknowledgements v 4. Introduction 1 5. Chapter 1: Trends in Writing the City 7 6. Chapter 2: Constructing Memory in Contemporary Johannesburg 24 7. Chapter 3: Gendered Representations of the City of Johannesburg 70 8. Conclusion 113 9. Works Cited a. Primary sources 117 b. Secondary sources 117 ii ABSTRACT ‗Writing the city‘, particularly writing the city of Johannesburg, in post-apartheid South African fiction can be considered as a new approach to interpreting South African culture; a new approach that takes into consideration and reflects the changes taking place in present-day South African society. By means of close textual analysis, this study examines the ways in which the city of Johannesburg is in the process of being re-imagined and reinvented in post-apartheid South African fiction and, therefore, in the post-apartheid memory. Particular attention is paid to narrative techniques utilised in the primary material as a means of not only re-writing the space of the city, but the space of South Africa as well. This is essential in order to reveal how transformation is narrated in post-apartheid, transitional texts and how this narration changes in post-transitional South African fiction. The chosen texts are read and interpreted as a type of cultural history or memory – as a means of constructing South African culture and history through textual production. In particular, this dissertation illustrates how texts written on Johannesburg, such as Phaswane Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow (2001), Ivan Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket (2001) and Kgebetli Moele‘s Room 207 (2006) are utilising the subject matter and every day life of the city as an ‗idea‘; as a means of expressing societal concerns and other important changes taking place in the country as a whole. This study focuses on how each of the three chosen novels contributes to South African culture and history by narrating its transformative history. Topics such as the depiction of Johannesburg as a palimpsest and as a cultural archive of historical moments in present-day South Africa are explored. In this regard, themes and representations of movement, transition and transformation in the city of Johannesburg, as well as attempts to memorialise this space, are dealt with. In addition, the representation of a ‗gendered‘ city as a means of narrating such transformation is also discussed. Here, reference is made to concerns such as the shifting position of men and women in the city, changing gender-related city consciousness, and altered gender discourse surrounding the city. This dissertation identifies and considers how depictions of the city of Johannesburg are being altered and modified in contemporary South African literature and contemplates the ways in which the narratives reveal how transformation is narrated via the Johannesburg landscape. Keywords: Johannesburg; post-apartheid; post-transitional; fiction; reimagining; re-writing; transformation; history; memory; gender; Mpe; Vladislavić; Moele iii DECLARATION I, the undersigned, hereby declare that ―Reinventing and Reimagining Johannesburg in Three Post-Apartheid South African Texts‖ is my own original work. Where secondary material has been used, this has been carefully and fully acknowledged and referenced in accordance with the University of Johannesburg‘s Department of English and Faculty of Humanities requirements. I do not presume to receive any credit for such acknowledged quotations, and there is no copyright infringement in my work. I declare that no unethical research practices were used or material gained through dishonesty, that all the sources I have used or quoted have been properly referenced and that I have not previously submitted this dissertation, in its entirety or in part, at any other university for a degree. …………………………………………….. ………………………….. Anne Putter Date Student Number: 200608223 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this MA dissertation would not have been possible without the unwavering support and guidance from a number of people. Above all, I am indebted to my supervisor, Dr Ronit Frenkel for her patient, in-depth and honest critical insight and assistance in encouraging me to read, research and work beyond my limitations. I would also like to thank Prof. Karen Scherzinger and her colleagues in the Department of English at the University of Johannesburg for their encouragement and support throughout the duration of this study. I am especially grateful to the Department of English for the financial support that it provided for me to attend the AUETSA Conference at Rhodes University in Grahamstown in July 2011, at which a paper based on a chapter of this dissertation was presented. I am also thankful for the feedback that I received at this conference, as well as from participants and panel Chairs at other conferences at which I presented extracts of this dissertation including; the Second Es‘kia Mphahlele Postgraduate Colloquium and Arts Forum held at the University of the Witwatersrand in September 2010, the Cities, Cultures, Knowledge Societies Virtual INST World Conference conducted in September 2010, the English Academy of South Africa Golden Jubilee International Conference hosted at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in September 2011 and the Memory and City International Conference held at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg also in September 2011. I am particularly appreciative of the views expressed at the Memory and City International Conference, which inspired the formulation of what is now my second chapter. I thank Prof. Craig Mackenzie at the University of Johannesburg for his suggestions regarding referencing techniques and the use of the Harvard referencing method in particular (which I use throughout this dissertation). Thank you also to Andrew Carolin for constructive comments made on earlier drafts of this dissertation. I express thanks, too, to Prof. Anette Horn and Prof. Peter Horn for their interest in and enthusiasm for my research. I am also extremely grateful for financial support provided by the University of Johannesburg‘s Next Generation Scholarship, as well the National Research Foundation, without which this MA dissertation, as well as my attendance at conferences at which I had the opportunity to present my research, would not have been possible. Regardless of the financial, intellectual and personal assistance that I have received during the writing of this dissertation, all views and opinions articulated are my own unless otherwise stated. v INTRODUCTION This study will examine the ways in which the city of Johannesburg is in the process of being re- imagined and reinvented in post-apartheid South African fiction. I focus particularly on Phaswane Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow (2001), Ivan Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket (2001) and Kgebetli Moele‘s Room 207 (2006). Because my dissertation is concerned with questions of representation, particular attention is paid to narrative techniques utilised in the primary material as a means of not only re-writing the space of the city, but the space of South Africa as well. This is essential in order to reveal how transformation is narrated in post-apartheid transitional texts and how this narration changes in post-transitional South African fiction. According to Ronit Frenkel and Craig MacKenzie (2010: 2), ―[l]inguistically the term ‗post-transitional‘ indicates something occurring after a period of change‖. They further maintain that ―[a]s a referent [the term] cannot but highlight the passage of time that has passed since South Africa‘s transition into a democracy, yet it also points to the period before and after this formal transition as an unbounded period and discourse‖ (Frenkel & MacKenzie 2010: 4). Considering the narrative and thematic changes in the movement from transitional to post- transitional fiction thus helps to reveal certain knowledge about the variable nature of post- apartheid, post-transitional South Africa and the ever-present influence of the events and concerns of previous and subsequent time periods in current cultural works. Another method important to this study is that of reading the three chosen texts as a type of cultural history. I read and interpret these texts as a means of constructing South African culture and history through textual production. In this way, this dissertation itself comes to form part of a South African archive of cultural discourse as it contemplates how the memory of the country is constructed in representations of one of its major city centres. I interpret the texts in this manner in order to contribute to the record or memory of transition in South Africa by analysing how these texts reflect and map transformation through a fictional social landscape. I do this by means of outlining current themes in city writing, analysing attempts at memorialisation in the texts, and considering how transformation is interpreted through fictional characters‘ lives and experiences in the city. Although my research is informed by important theories relating to urban studies, this dissertation is not concerned with the construction of Johannesburg as an urban
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