“An Eternal Alien”: South African Autobiographical Beginnings

Abstract

Summary This article examines South African autobiographical writings from the early to the middle twentieth century. A careful reading of these writings shows that the various ways in which the autobiographical subjects constructed their “South Africanness” was a result of the interplay between power, history, racism/placism and culture. These discourses are discussed in relation to how they affected the subjectivities of the authors and led to aspects of hybridisation, alienation and exile. The polyglot nature of South Africa is examined as part of the subtext of identity formation and fostering within the bounds of postcolonial/post-apartheid autobiographical possibilities as part of national identities. In conclusion, this article reflects on present-day autobiographical practice. Questions of how to wrest the practice from the stultifying theory and criticism of Western scholarship are posed in order to identify further research possibilities and, hopefully, an epistemological break in African autobiographical studies. A close reading of the texts of Roy Campbell and Bloke Modisane is therefore undertaken. The rise of a literate class played a significant role in ushering in autobiographical writings since literary beginnings gave a sense of permanence and fulfilment to these writers and led them to assume local and international identities which they experienced differently. A particular aspect that is examined is the cross-racial transcendence which some of the autobiographical subjects attained as a way of overcoming hybridity and ambivalence in South Africa, for example as is reflected in Helen Joseph's moving text Side by Side (1986).