The Tragic and the Comic: Sello Duiker’s and Niq Mhlongo’s Contrasting Visions of Post-Apartheid Society

Thabo Tšehloane’s article analyses and contrasts how two South African post-apartheid authors, K. Sello Duiker and Niq Mhlongo, envision post-apartheid society in their inaugural novels. Tšehloane argues that Duiker’s works (e.g., Thirteen Cents and The Quiet Violence of Dreams) are marked by “tragic optimism”, using utopian enclaves and apocalyptic themes as a response to disillusionment with mainstream society. In contrast, Mhlongo’s novels (like Dog Eat Dog and After Tears) display a “comic pessimism”, highlighting ethical abdication, duplicity, and the disenchanted pursuit of material affluence in a morally compromised society. Using Fredric Jameson’s theoretical framework (especially his idea of literary texts as socially symbolic acts), the article shows how both authors’ narrative forms (e.g., Bildungsroman) and ideological tensions reflect their complex relationship with post-apartheid reality. Duiker’s vision is more inward, interior, psychologically deep, while Mhlongo’s is external, satirical, rooted in everyday moral compromises.

Loại tài liệu:

Article - Bài báo

Tác giả:

Tsehloane, Thabo

Đề mục:

Postcolonial literary studies

Nhà xuất bản:

Taylor & Francis

Ngày xuất bản:

2010

Số trang/ tờ:

Định dạng:

pdf

Định danh tư liệu:

https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2010.488342

Nguồn gốc:

English Studies in Africa, Volume 53, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 79-90,123

Liên kết:

ISSN 0013-8398

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The Tragic and the Comic: Sello Duiker’s and Niq Mhlongo’s Contrasting Visions of Post-Apartheid Society

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