Description

Considering fiction from the colonial era to the present, State of Peril offers the first sustained, scholarly examination of rape narratives in the literature of a country that has extremely high levels of sexual violence.

Lucy Graham demonstrates how, despite the fact that most incidents of rape in South Africa are not interracial, narratives of interracial rape have dominated the national imaginary. Seeking to understand this phenomenon, the study draws on Michel Foucault's ideas on sexuality and biopolitics, as well as Judith Butler's speculations on race and cultural melancholia. Historical analysis of the body politic provides the backdrop for careful, close readings of literature by Olive Schreiner, Sol Plaatje, Sarah Gertrude Millin, Njabulo Ndebele, J.M. Coetzee, Zoe Wicomb and others.

Ultimately, State of Peril argues for ethically responsible interpretations that recognize high levels of sexual violence in South Africa while parsing the racialized inferences and assumptions implicit in literary representations of bodily violation.

Features

• First monograph on the vexing issue of rape in South African literature
• Includes readings of well-known texts by J.M. Coetzee, Zoe Wicomb, Njabulo Ndebele, and others
• Blends political history and literary studies to provide a study of South African literature from the late 1890s to the present

Reviews

"This is a highly original, stimulating, and intelligent book that breaks new ground in literary-cultural studies of South Africa." --Laura Chrisman, author of Rereading the Imperial Romance: British Imperialism and South African Resistance in Haggard, Schreiner, and Plaatje

"State of Peril offers a radical alternative history of South African literature, showing the degree to which its imaginative core has been consistently engaged with issues of race and gender violence." --Robert J.C. Young, author of Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race

Product Details

272 pages; 5 illustrations; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-979637-3ISBN10: 0-19-979637-8

About the Author(s)