“Home” as Depicted in Selected African and Afrikaner Novels and Short Stories

Abstract

As social critics, artists offered another perspective in the nationalist dis-course where the imagined community was not as clear cut as the official definition. The official nationalist discourse represented the white minority as a homogenous group. The counter discourse offered alternative representation for blacks (BC), Africans (PAC), and the people (ANC). Artists represented communities informed by gender, class, and race. They also addressed the economic, political, and social issues that faced their characters. Some of these authors’ characters exposed the fear and uncertanity of living under apartheid. In this chapter we will examine the role of artists in these representations. These fictional works provide a panorama of life under apartheid that was hidden from the official versions of the imagined community. What was life like during apartheid for the Afrikaner elite? The Smell of Apples, by Mark Behr, depicts the life of an Afrikaner elite family. In The Hand that Kills, by Sindiwe Magona, the plight of an African maid in a liberal Anglo home is exposed. Mtutuzeli Matshomba demonstrates the trauma of being homeless and the ability of apartheid to corrupt in in his short story, My Friend the Outcast. In all these works, the impact of apartheid on the individual is laid bare.

For example, you did not help me. Everybody. They preferred to sleep in their safety. But I ran too. And as the wind that blew against my face like the very sound of shame. The sound of victims laughing at victims. Feeding their victimness, until it becomes an obscene virtue. Is there ever an excuse for ignorance? And when victims spit upon victims, should they not be called fools?

—Njabulo Ndebele, “Fools”

Exile was not so much a geographical dislocation as a state of mind, something that consumed and branded and left one marked for life.

—Mandla Langa, “The Naked Song”