White Guilt: Antjie Krog’s Begging to Be Black and the Confessional Uncanny

Abstract

Krog’s Begging to Be Black is an attempt to articulate whiteness in postapartheid South Africa. This article contends that Krog’s desire for blackness is modulated by her persistent “white guilt,” and therefore her memoir foreshadows a mode of writing, the confessional uncanny, whereby her claim to national belonging is expressed.