The Shadow of the Past Hangs Over Post-Apartheid South African Fiction in English

Abstract

This paper sets out to rake stock of how the demons of apartheid-era South Africa impact the new dispensation over twenty-five years after the first democratic elections ever held in South Africa. Also, through a methodological approach predicated upon an fictional opus made up of different novelists, and upon perspectives drawn the social sciences, not least philosophy, history, sociology, the paper seeks to highlight the invaluable contribution of South African writers-black and white alike- to the demise of was later known as institutionalized racism. The article argues that protest literature’s unyielding resolve to grittily spotlight the materiality of the black condition in South Africa from 1948-when the National Party came to power with a racist agenda-to 1990 was crucial to raising international awareness about the horrors of apartheid, and, accordingly, the overarching need to call time on it. For all that, the paper explains, the racial chickens are coming home to roost since the downtrodden of yesteryear are perceived by their former oppressors as being driven by a vengeful agenda. With the end of institutionalized racism, the paper contends, Postapartheid South African novelists tend to move away from racial determinism that hallmarked apartheid-era writing to embrace novelistic themes appertaining to the concerns and challenges that plague modern-day South Africa.