Postapartheid Ephemerality in Marlene van Niekerk’s <em>Triomf</em>

Abstract

In the wake of the Fees Must Fall movements in South Africa, Nelson Mandela's invocation of the "Rainbow Nation" in his 1994 inaugural presidential address was subject to renewed criticism. This essay considers how, from its first utterance, the metaphor was never allowed to communicate its most significant affordance: the recognition that processes of transition are frequently buoyed up by ephemeral moments, whose use may be their very transience. By returning to the ephemeral in Marlene van Niekerk's Triomf, it shows how Van Niekerk's text asks how we allow things to pass away. Signaling this postapartheid ephemerality through the breath, Van Niekerk opens up a discussion about ephemerality in the foundational text of the postapartheid period that has been largely overlooked, but has, perhaps, never been more important than in South Africa's present.