Movement, Memory, Transformation, and Transition in the City: Literary Representations of Johannesburg in Post-Apartheid South African Texts

Abstract

“Writing the city,” particularly writing the city of Johannesburg, in post-apartheid South African fiction can be considered 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. Texts written on Johannesburg such as Kgebetli Moele’s Room 207 (2006) and Ivan Vladislavić’s The Restless Supermarket (2001) are utilizing the subject matter and everyday 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. The paper will identify and consider how depictions of the city of Johannesburg are being altered and modified in contemporary South African literature, and show the ways in which the narratives reveal how transformation is narrated and how this changes in post-transitional South African fiction. Topics such as the depiction of Johannesburg as a palimpsest, as a conflation of historical moments—past, present and future—will be explored. Reasons why this change is taking place and why this reinvention of the city of Johannesburg in fictional works is essential will also be discussed.