The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in present-day South Africa: André Brink’s On the Contrary

Abstract

The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in present-day South Africa: Andre Brink’s On the Contrary By engaging in a close reading of Andre Brink’s On the Contrary in terms of the text’s concern with reinventing identity by means of both private and public/collective memory, this article seeks to investigate how the imposition of totalizing narratives on diasporic identities can be circumvented. This article will examine how concepts of “diaspora” and “memory” can contribute towards such an exploration of questions in post-apartheid South Africa and what their usefulness is in terms of gaining an insight into the role of South Africa’s history in the confirmation and/or contention of a collective identity.