Afrikaans Literature Research Articles

Die afbakening van die kern van die Afrikaanse poësiesisteem (2000–2022)

A core/periphery structure is a concept often used in various disciplines to examine the structure of different systems. In the study of Afrikaans literature, this structural facet is also a well-known topic and one that has already been written about extensively. It is generally assumed that actors within the core of a system are more important, authoritative, established and stable, while actors on the periphery often fulfill less important roles, are more dynamic and are also often newcomers. However, the question arises how it can be determined scientifically which role players function within the core of the system, and how the core can be demarcated. In this article, a network analysis of the contemporary Afrikaans poetry system is undertaken, and with the help of network concepts such as the k-core and eccentricity, it is shown how and where the core and the absolute core of the Afrikaans poetry system can be delineated. This approach provides an objective and scientific way to examine the structure of the poetry system. As such, the study connects to previous studies of the Afrikaans poetry system as a system and as a network, but the current study applies new criteria to a new data set and delineates the core of this system.

Fertile Ground

Yellowstone is an American, contemporary Western primetime television series which has evolved into a cultural phenomenon. In this article, we critically read purposive samples from this popular cultural text through the prism of the plaasroman (Afrikaans farm novel), a seminal subgenre in Afrikaans literature. Through an analysis of a range of tropes, we identify similarities between these seemingly disparate genres in terms of the representation of the Boer and Frontier myth, ownership and belonging, centre-periphery dichotomies, and identity. The value of this analysis is two-fold: First, it lies in what such a comparative analysis reveals about the contemporary moment in both a local and transnational context. The resurgence of nostalgic yearning for a particular brand of patriarchal, heteronormative, conservative, rural simplicity in the narratives of Yellowstone is read against the background of farm, and land, as depicted in the plaasroman. This is relevant given that there is a similar propensity for nostalgia in certain South African contexts which takes the form of appropriations of the construct of the Afrikaner Boer imaginary and the concomitant utopian farm ideal. Second, and perhaps more importantly, we argue that analysing Yellowstone from the theoretical vantage point of the plaasroman, which originates from a minor language and literary system, inverts the ways in which Global North genre-lenses are usually used to read Global South genres. The research follows a controlled case comparison approach and, building on a deep description of the plaasroman, presents an analysis and interpretation of Yellowstone’s first season.

“remember that a white woman is a white man”: Ronelda S. Kamfer’s Black Feminist Poetry as Corrective to the Race Logic of White Afrikaans Literary Feminisms

Abstract The creation of the Afrikaner volk and the violent appropriation and institutionalization of the Afrikaans language as white cultural property around the beginning of the twentieth century in South Africa was a patriarchal project from the outset. The canon of Afrikaans literature reflects both the erasure of Black subjects from the official history and recorded footprint of the language as well as the failure of white Afrikaans feminism to challenge these erasures and patriarchal structures of white power. In this essay we argue that Ronelda Kamfer’s poetry collection Chinatown (2019) functions as a powerful corrective to literary Afrikaans whitestream feminism and that Kamfer’s defiant relational intersectionality enables an alternative way of world-making beyond the disciplinary mechanisms and exclusionary technologies of white colonial patriarchy.

'n Interseksionele ondersoek: Godsdiens, feminisme, identiteit en behoort in geselekteerde

Religion is a common theme in Afrikaans literature. Religious references are used in many ways-during the anti-apartheid struggle it was (for instance) employed to protest the actions of the government in literary texts such as poetry. Similarly, women poets use religion, which is usually associated with patriarchy, as a metaphor for struggles with identity and belonging. Spirituality and organised religion are also shown to be differing concepts with organised religion being the product of society which influences the position of different genders within its stuctures. Spirituality refers to something inherently human related to the individual's personal belief system. In this article, religious reflections in poetry by three very different female poets will be explored as musings on how religion and belonging to a religious tradition are experienced. This will be done from the perspective of postsecular feminism, which does not revert to binary oppositions when discussing religion, but grapples with it in an intersectional way, as argued by Nandini Deo. An intersectional feminist approach will therefore be utilised to analyse selected poems of Lynthia Julius in Uit die kroes (From the kroes) (2020), of Corné Coetzee in nou, hier (now, here) (2017) and of Radna Fabias in Habitus (2018). Julius, a young black woman, and Coetzee, an older white woman, are Afrikaans poets whose work can be viewed as containing feminist ideas while also exploring the role of religion. Fabias, a black Dutch poet from Curaçao, represents a transnational example where similar themes are explored as in the work of the two Afrikaans poets, albeit from a very different intersectional position. In this article, intersections of, not just gender and race, but also culture, language, politics, nationality, age, ethnicity and identity are considered when understanding a woman's sense of belonging to a religion.

'n Feministiese ondersoek na Bettina Wyngaard se misdaadfiksie

The recent discourse on black feminism in Afrikaans literature is strongly influenced by powerful and activist-oriented writers like Ronelda Kamfer, Lynthia Julius, and Veronique Jephtas. With their poetry and public statements, they have shaped the feminist discourse significantly. However, the recent discourse on feminism in Afrikaans largely overlooks the contributions of certain black Afrikaans women writers. Bettina Wyngaard, a black Afrikaans woman novelist, attempts to disrupt this silence and through her literature and opinion pieces, she advances an alternative feminist stance. This article focuses on Wyngaard's contribution to the recent feminist discourse and the ways in which she asserts her voice within the debate. In this article I refer to three of her crime fiction novels, namely Vuilspel (Foul play) (2013), Slaafs (Slavishly) (2016) and Jagter (Hunter) (2019). I analyse these texts in attempt to examine the feminist ideology underlying her literature. I argue that Wyngaard chooses crime fiction, a genre traditionally dominated by white males, in attempt to sanction her voice within the feminism debate in Afrikaans. In this article, I examine Wyngaard's crime fiction within the context of third wave of feminism, which engages with popular culture as a tool for critique and to promote feminist ideology. I explore the feminist consciousness and ideology in Wyngaard's novels and the ways in which she challenges established patriarchal conventions in crime fiction as a genre. I employ Anne Cranny-Francis' framework in the feminist value of crime fiction to examine the feminist themes in Wyngaard's work.

Interseksionele feminisme in Afrikaanse poësie: Lynthia Julius se Uit die kroes

In the current transnational discourse on fourth-wave feminism, "intersectional feminism" is a fundamental concept. The representation of marginalised voices of especially Black women from underrepresented contexts, such as the Global South, is emphasised in an attempt to decolonise the formal domains of literature, academia and the media. Historically, there is a gap in the representation of diverse Black female voices in South African literatures. However, there has recently been an increase in the publication of the literary texts by previously marginalised voices, especially in Afrikaans poetry. Diverse perspectives are shared regarding the complexities of the intersection of identity categories including race, gender, culture, identity, class, language and socioeconomic status in South African society, and how it affects the previously marginalised. A voice that represents intersectional feminist issues in the South African and Afrikaans contexts can be found in Lynthia Julius's debut poetry book, Uit die kroes (From the kroes, 2020). In this article, the significance of Julius's unique, intersectional feminist viewpoint, with stories and perspectives from the Northern Cape, is investigated. The focus is specifically on how Julius represents a 'triple marginalised' voice in the South African and Afrikaans contexts with regard to her gender, race and language. Furthermore, I will discuss how the uniqueness of her collection of poems and Northern Cape Afrikaans, that have rarely been provided with a platform in the Afrikaans literary canon, contribute to giving a voice to the historic 'voiceless'. The importance of Julius's voice and how it highlights the heterogeneity of previously marginalised groups in South Africa, are also explored. In conclusion it is argued that the publication of poets with diverse intersectional feminist perspectives, such as Julius, can be deemed a positive step in the direction of the decolonising process of the Afrikaans literature and feminism.

Die verwantskap tussen khôra en die mistiek in M.M. Walters se gedig ‘Die groot stilte’

The relationship between khôra and mysticism in M.M Walter’s poem ‘Die groot stilte’. In view of M.M. Walters’ recent death (28 Julie 2020), it is timeous to pay homage to him by focusing on a lesser-known aspect of his poetry, namely mysticism. This article aims to demonstrate the relationship between the mysterious and enigmatic Platonic concept khôra and mysticism, and to subsequently indicate how this is expressed in the poem ‘Die groot stilte’ (in the volume Sprekende van God). Walters (1929–2020) was mainly a satirist, but also a poet of religious verse. However, he differentiated himself as an unconventional religious poet and alternative seeker of God. He opposed church dogma and believed that Christ should be sought in ways that go beyond simply accepting the church’s teachings. The article opens with a brief survey of the mystical tradition in Afrikaans poetry, after which the poetry of Walters is briefly described. Subsequently, the reception of his anthology Sprekende van God is discussed. After an introductory discussion of the khôra concept, his poem Die groot stilte is analysed in detail, and the relationship between khôra and mysticism explained. Pieter G.R. de Villiers (2020) maintains that Walters created striking poems with mystical content, and that he was often misunderstood by the clergy and orthodox believers as an enemy of religion and the church. Countering this, De Villiers observes that Walters was driven to seek a genuine, credible spirituality. De Villiers finds it unfortunate that this aspect of Walters’ poetry is not sufficiently recognised.Contribution: Based on the analysis and interpretation of ‘Die groot stilte’, the conclusion is reached that Walters can indeed be described as a mystical poet and that his mystical poetry can be regarded as part of the relatively small yield in mystical Afrikaans literature. This article adds to the equally small corpus of academic literature on mysticism in Afrikaans.

Between Transnational Socialism and White Privilege: Afrikaner Woman Worker’s ‘Library’ in the 1930s and 1940s

ABSTRACT In this article, I set out to introduce the Garment Workers Union (GWU) prose as a neglected part of Afrikaans-language literature. I offer an overview of texts written or translated by the GWU members and published in the official trade union organ Die Klerewerker/The Garment Worker. The presented workers’ reading list is divided into original Afrikaans writings and translations from English into Afrikaans. All these texts offered the newly created white working class a new identification, manoeuvring between belonging to the national imagined community of Afrikaners based on the concept of nation and whiteness, and to a transnational workers’ community based on the category of class. Looking at the impact of the Dutch and English language traditions in South Africa, I propose that the way in which European conventions made their way to Afrikaans literature, was class-based. Textsrecognized as artistic, incorporated in the Afrikaans literary canon, drew heavily on Dutch tradition. The English language turned out to be the medium that also circulated a less elitist thought. Therefore, it was English that enabled the movement of texts from Europe and the United States to South Africa that shaped the South African white working-class, including its Afrikaner part.

To listen with decolonial ears: Hein Willemse, hidden histories, and the politics of disruptive intervention

In this article, we canvass some of the ideas around Hein Willemse’s focus on hidden histories, conscious oppositionality, and literature that falls outside the canon, which began to coalesce following contemporary calls for decolonial approaches in the (South) African academy. While the decolonial turn has focused attention on shared histories within Global South contexts, it is through Willemse’s postcolonial teachings that we first came to understand the importance and meaning of reclaiming the lost African ontological space. This article is, therefore, located in postcolonial and decolonial scholarship in the sense that it is not driven by a particular method but rather by questions that emerged from larger social contexts. We draw on Willemse’s visionary understanding of the importance of hidden histories and what it might mean to listen with postcolonial and/or decolonial ears. This, amongst other things, requires an acute awareness of history, heritage, and legacies both in society and in the academy. We incorporate a random selection of his work to unpack how his disruptive intervention serves to reformulate the idea of Afrikaans and Afrikaans literature in ways that are more inclusive of those silenced by the apartheid project, including Africa and the Global South at large.

Vanden vos Reynaerde se transformasie tot Reinaard die Jakkals

The legacy of the Middle Dutch epic Vanden vos Reynaerde and the many ways in which we still see traces of Reynaert the fox and his companion, Iesegrim the wolf, in Afrikaans, are discussed in this article. The indestructible fox gets a second life under the Southern Cross, perhaps most notably in the many tales about Jackal and Wolf which are well known as part of a shared oral heritage by white and Khoi speakers of Afrikaans. Our focus is not these stories, however, but rather the following question: does the Reynaert of the epic indeed live on in Afrikaans literature? We argue that the epic itself and its literary heritage has not received as much attention as did the stories of the sly jackal and the gullible, even dim-witted, wolf. These extremely short stories do not exhibit the carefully planned structure, sharp social commentary and ruthless exposing of human weaknesses as does the epic. In our opinion, the only text in which the medieval epic itself functions as intertext, is in the brilliant adaptation by Eitemal. Eitemal created a story which is in many ways so different from the Dutch Reinaert, that it truly is a story written on African soil. In the Eitemal text, the sly fox becomes a typical Afrikaans crook—and what’s more, he is a villain who is not foreign to modern readers due to his essentially human character. In Reinaard die Jakkals the intrepid, extremely cruel but also clever fox lives on.

Minority-Language Publishing

Abstract Afrikaans is regarded as a peripheral language in the global polysystem of language, as well as a minority language in terms of the proportion of South Africa’s people who speak this language. In order to expand the market for Afrikaans trade books and to position Afrikaans literature internationally, there needs to be more visibility and resourcing, translation rights need to be sold, and South African publishing to be positively rebranded. This article explores the challenges and opportunities of Afrikaans publishing, applies polysystems theory as a theoretical framework, undertakes a comprehensive literature review, and discusses findings from interviews with trade publishers and observations at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Grond/Santekraam en bientang: Gesitueer in globale swart seeroetes

The Afrikaans poetry collections grond/Santekraam (2011) by Ronelda S. Kamfer and bientang (2020) by Jolyn Phillips both centralise the ocean and both deal with attempts at recovering repressed black histories. Apart from figuring as a source of spiritual fulfilment and connected to figures in the collection’s livelihoods, the ocean is represented in these collections as the bringer of European colonisers and of slaves to South Africa. In this article I contend that references to slavery and colonialism and the use of words in languages brought to South Africa through slave networks position these collections as products of the transnational Black Atlantic tradition, as theorised by Paul Gilroy. The fact that the narratives of both collections take place in the Overstrand region, near the meeting place of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, gives an indication of how Gilroy’s theory needs to be adapted to be applicable to Afrikaans literature: as many English-language South African theorists have argued, oceanic literary studies in South Africa should pay as much attention to routes in the Indian Ocean as to Atlantic routes. The emphasis in both collections on not only a history of slavery, but also one of the displacement of and violence against the people already inhabiting the area when colonisers alighted, further serves to indicate what an Afrikaans black aquatic literature looks like. When taking into account these differences between Afrikaans and other versions of black aquatic art, reading grond/Santekraam and bientang as part of a global black aesthetics allows the researcher to identify the ways in which these collections are characterised by a hermeneutics of suspicion (an interpretation of contemporary life that recognises the ways in which it is structured and functions in anti-black ways) and a hermeneutics of memory (an interpretation of this anti-black contemporary as a continuation of the history of the dehumanisation of black people).

In ʼn leefwêreld vervleg: Die gesprek oor Ingrid Jonker op Instagram

Intertwined in a living world: The conversation about Ingrid Jonker on Instagram. Ingrid Jonker is a legend in Afrikaans literature who is sometimes compared with figures such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and James Dean. Because she is such an important figure in Afrikaans literature, the current study examines the conversation around her on the social media platform, Instagram. The current study conducts an analysis of hashtags used in conjunction with #ingridjonker in order to determine which texts, people, places, films, musicians, plays, visual arts, emotions and the like are associated with her on this platform. Her strong connection with André P. Brink is highlighted and it is also shown how she remains relevant across language and medium boundaries.

Exploring Transnational Dimensions of Activism in Contemporary Book Culture: Ons Klyntji and Afrikaner Activism

Afrikaans developed in South Africa out of an interaction among a variety of peoples. In the beginning, Afrikaans was considered a language spoken by the lower classes, but it rose from this low position to become an official language in 1925. After the National Party started to govern South Africa in 1948, Afrikaans became the language of the oppressor during apartheid. Post‑apartheid, Afrikaners questioned their identity, feeling conflicted between pride and shame. The magazine Ons Klyntji was established in 1896 to foster a literary culture and shape Afrikaner identity, and still exists today. Throughout its publication history, the magazine was used to promote progressive causes: first in the creation of an Afrikaans literature, and then as a vehicle for protest by Afrikaners against apartheid. Both these causes developed out of a need to find a distinct identity amongst Afrikaners. The researchers argue that the publishing of Ons Klyntji has contributed positively to progressive political and social change with regards to Afrikaner identity, particularly in the post‑apartheid period.

Die vermeldingsnetwerk van gekanoniseerde Afrikaanse skrywers in die Afrikaanse literatuurstudie (2000–2020)

From the point of view of systems and field theory, the value attached to a work of art, for example a literary text, is not only the result of the intrinsic characteristics of the text but also includes connections with institutions such as publishers, and factors like literary prizes, the value judgments of literary historians, of reviewers, and of literary critics. The current study examines the mentions of canonized Afrikaans writers in nine academic journals over the past two decades, taking into account more than 5 000 publications and more than 70 000 pages. It is shown which authors are mentioned most, but also which authors are mentioned most often together, and it is shown that authors are mostly mentioned together in the terms of genre. Although the current study represents a large study of the visibility of authors in the study of Afrikaans literature, suggestions for further research are also made.

Ecocritical Concerns in Select Afrikaans Narrative Works: Critical Perspectives

Summary Environmentally oriented literary and cultural studies, or ecocriticism for short, gained traction in the United States of America in the late 1980s. It took root in South Africa no earlier than the start of this century and has been applied to the field of Afrikaans literature only for about the last decade. At a conference in Nijmegen in 2010, the leading German ecocritic Axel Goodbody expressed concern about the slow spread of ecocriticism to non-Anglophone literatures. He highlighted the debilitating effect of the hegemony of English as medium of communication on practising ecocriticism. Goodbody warned that ecocritic debates would be poorer if they neglect the resources of theorising and critical analyses in non-English-speaking language and other contexts; and cultures that are not dominated by Anglophone traditions. Afrikaans has been part of the surge of different national voices and languages in this field. This article enters the debate about the expansion of ecocritical studies to include a more environmentally oriented world of research than the one dominated by Anglophone literatures for quite a few decades. It offers a critical-descriptive overview of how ecocritical studies centred on Afrikaans literary narratives add nuances to and amplify thematic matters of interest for ecocriticism in our country. I want to highlight the diverse and convincing contributions made by Afrikaans literary critics to “the understanding of the human relationship to the planet” (Joni Adamson & Scott Slovic, 2009: 6). These contributions are analysed in order to also evaluate the relevance of the various theoretical angles of approach in use, regarded within the broader theoretical discourse of ecocriticism.

Racial Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa: J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace

J.M. Coetzee is a South African novelist, critic and an active translator of Dutch and Afrikaans literature. His novels are conspicuous for their well- crafted composition, pregnant dialogues and analytical brilliance. Coetzee’s earlier novels question the apartheid regime, while his later works offer an apocalyptic vision of post- apartheid South Africa. His major works include Disgrace, Waiting for the Barbarians, Life and Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Age of Iron and The Childhood of Jesus. In 1999, Coetzee has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career, although he has a reputation for avoiding award ceremonies. Coetzee became the first author to be twice awarded the Booker Prize, winning it as second time for Disgrace which portrays the post-apartheid society. Coetzee went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003 for his entire body of works. During the years of apartheid, he was at the forefront of the anti-apartheid movement among writers. Scholar Isadore Dalia labelled J.M Coetzee as one of the most distinguished white writers with an anti-apartheid sentiment. Coetzee’s earlier novels question the apartheid regime, while his later works offer an apocalyptic vision of post- apartheid South Africa. Disgrace can be analyzed as a representative work of the new south Africa where the social problems relating binary oppositions such as black- white, white- immigrant, powerless- powerful, are stressed. This paper attempts to show through the protagonist, David Lurie, that the way to adapt to the changes in the country is to make a fresh start, a way to adapt to the new times, where no ideas of the old are retained. Frantz Fanon’s concepts within the field of post colonialism which he articulated in Black Skin, White Masks (1967) and The Wretched of the Earth (1963) have much relevance in Disgrace. The objective of this paper is to stretch his new ideas in a new direction by applying his theories on nation and culture onto a white subject Lurie, a white native South African. In the light of Fanon’s text, The Wretched of the Earth it can be argued that following the revolutionary political changes in South Africa in 1994, the former colonizer can be seen in the same way as the colonized usually is: a powerless native, regardless of racial identity.

Digitising Afrikaans

Afrikaans is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages. With the continued rise of English as language of prestige in education, the economy and public sphere a movement towards a monolingual South Africa seems to be underway. This movement results in a loss of interest in the development and use of South Africa’s indigenous languages. Another contributing factor is the unavailability or inaccessibility of resources in indigenous South African languages. This paper reports on the protocol and process of establishing online resources to encourage research in and on Afrikaans. The digitalisation process encompasses establishing a) digital bibliographies for Afrikaans literature and linguistics, where researchers can find links to online resources and pdf documents; b) an online archive where endangered (and often otherwise unobtainable) resources are stored in digital format; c) an online library where digitalized machine readable texts are stored; and d) an online historical corpus for Early Afrikaans (1675-1925). These resources are all angled towards linguistic research, specifically corpus linguistic research. VivA also offers a number of online resources to make research in Afrikaans more accessible – these include a general and school grammar for Afrikaans, a corpus portal for corpus linguists, and a speech atlas to create awareness of linguistic variety in Afrikaans. The digitisation project is largely based on the Digital Library for Dutch Literature (Dutch: Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren) (DBNL) and is still ongoing with various phases being undertaken simultaneously. It is our goal to present this project as a template to demonstrate how other indigenous South African languages can go about establishing digital resources and to encourage synergy amongst linguists and linguistic institutions.

De Burger-Leeskring: a Brief History of South Africa’s First Commercial Book Club and its Effect on Afrikaans Literature

Abstract This paper investigates the history of the De Burger-Leeskring and the impact it had on Afrikaans literature and cultural development. It places the development of Nasionale Pers and the Afrikaans language within the context of South Africa’s history and the development of language, politics and culture, as well as considering book clubs or readers’ circles and their purpose within this context. This paper uses Bourdieu’s classification of different kinds of capital—specifically cultural capital and financial capital—to evaluate the success of this Leeskring [Reader’s Circle]. It was found that although not financially successful, the Leeskring’s influence on Afrikaans literature was vast.

Afrikaans Literature in / and the World Republic of Letters: The Case of Koos Prinsloo and S.J. Naudé

SummaryThis article deals with the position of Afrikaans literature as a small literature in the world, with specific reference to some of Pascale Casanova’s most provocative statements on the position of small literatures in her book La République Mondiale des Lettres (1999), translated into English as The World Republic of Letters (2004). The article first looks at the different meanings of the term “world literature” and the notion of a “world republic of letters” from the perspective of the small literature Afrikaans. The article then engages with Casanova’s discussion of the way in which writers in small literatures position themselves in literary space through strategies of assimilation (integration through the dilution of original differences), différentiation (the insertion of difference), the (de)politicization of literature and translation. The article also devotes attention to the ideas of the most important critics of her work such as Prendergast and Ganguly. The article then proceeds to discuss the way in which works by the Afrikaans authors Koos Prinsloo and S.J. Naudé, who both question patriarchal and heteronormative conventions of their time, reveal the limitations of Casanova’s description of small literatures. Prinsloo’s short stories, published in the 1980s and 1990s, do not fit into a national tradition; they are experimental, aesthetically refined and transgressive, even though they did not circulate beyond Afrikaans. In his turn S.J. Naudé, who started publishing in Afrikaans almost thirty years after Prinsloo’s debut, develops a radical, anti-nostalgic queer aesthetic which questions both the national and the global as legitimate frameworks for writing. Both these writers problematise Casanova’s description of small literatures in the larger world context.