Selves in Question : Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography / Judith Lutge Coullie, Stephan Meyer, Thengani H. Ngwenya, Thomas Olver.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Coullie, Judith Lütge, editor.

Meyer, Stephan, editor.

Ngwenya, Thengani H., editor.

Olver, Thomas, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

South Africa--Biography.

South Africa.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2006]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Wide-ranging and engaging, Selves in Question considers the various ways in which auto/biographical accounts situate and question the self in contemporary southern Africa.The twenty-seven interviews presented here consider both the ontological status and the representation of the self. They remind us that the self is constantly under construction in webs of interlocution and that its status and representation are always in question. The contributors, therefore, look at ways in which auto/biographical practices contribute to placing, understanding, and troubling the self and selves in postcolonies in the current global constellation. They examine topics such as the contexts conducive to production processes; the contents and forms of auto/biographical accounts; and finally, their impact on the producers and the audience. In doing so they map out a multitude of variables--including the specific historical juncture, geo-political locations, social positions, cultures, languages, generations, and genders--in their relations to auto/biographical practices. Those interviewed include the famous and the hardly known, women and men, writers and performers who communicate in a variety of languages: Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho, and Yiddish. An extensive introduction offers a general framework on the contestation of self through auto/biography, a historical overview of auto/biographical representation in South Africa up to the present time, an outline of theoretical and thematic issues at stake in southern Africa auto/biography, and extensive primary and secondary biographies.Interviewees: Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis Brutus, Valentine Cascarino, Vanitha Chetty, Wilfred Cibane, Greig Coetzee, J. M. Coetzee, Paul Faber, David Goldblatt, Stephen Gray, Dorian Haarhoff, Rayda Jacobs, Elsa Joubert, K. Limakatso Kendall, Ester Lee, Doris Lessing, Sindiwe Magona, Margaret McCord, N. Chabani Manganyi, Zolani Mkiva, Jonathan Morgan, Es'kia Mphahlele, Rob Nixon, Mpho Nthunya, Robert Scott, Gillian Slovo, Alex J. Thembela, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Johan van Wyk, Wilhelm Verwoerd, David Wolpe, D. L. P.Yali Manisi.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

I. Introduction

Auto/biographical Identities: Placing Selves in Question

Auto/biographical Accounts in South Africa in Three Parts

Thematic and Theoretical Issues in Southern African Auto/biography: An Overview

Scope of the Collection

Bibliography

II. Singing the Praises, Performing the Persona

Versions of a Life in Poetry / Opland, Jeff

People Feel No Event Is Complete without a Poet / Brown, Duncan / Kiguli, Susan

Folk Music as Popular Culture: A Life-history Approach / Ngwenya, Thengani

III. Representing Silence

I. Speak Their Wordless Woe / Lewis, Simon

Making History's Silences Speak / Ngwenya, Thengani

IV. Relating the Self

Creating a Climate for Change / Meyer, Stephan

This Miracle of a Book . . . It's Just Like the Bible to Me / Farr, Vanessa

Collaborators / Ngwenya, Thengani

The Making of Katie Makanya / Ngwenya, Thengani

V. Fact or Fiction

All Autobiography Is Autre-biography / Attwell, David

We Would Write Very Dull Books If We Just Wrote about Ourselves / Meyer, Stephan

Writing Autobiography and Writing Fiction / Daymond, M. J.

VI. Subject to Metaphor

Aquifers and Auto/biography in Namibia / Zeeman, Terence

Reflections on Identity / Sienaert, Marilet

Rhythmic Redoublings / Nuttall, Sarah / Michael, Cheryl-Ann

VII. From Daughters to Mothers

"Mummy, the Coolie Doctor Is at the Door" / Coullie, Judith Lütge

Why Do You Abandon Me? I Am Your Daughter. Re-presenting Dona Ermelinda / Cartwright, Duncan

Every Secret Thing as Family Memoir / Jolly, Margaretta

VIII. Disarming White Men

White Men with Weapons: Performing Autobiography / Lütge, Debbie

Reflections in a Cracked Mirror / McMurty, Mervyn

IX. Commemoration, Confession, Conversion

These Two Autobiographical Books Are My Identity Document / Starck, Astrid

Philosophical Reflections on Chronicles of Conversion / Meyer, Stephan

X. Confessing Sexualities

Speaking about Writing about Living a Life / Coullie, Judith Lütge

Man-bitch: Poetry, Prose, and Prostitution / Coullie, Judith Lütge

XI. Re-collecting the New Nation

Group Portrait: Self, Family, and Nation on Exhibit / Meyer, Stephan

Resituating Ourselves: Homelessness and Collective Testimony as Narrative Therapy / Raditlhalo, Sam

Glossary

Contributors

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

ISBN:

0-8248-4350-9

OCLC:

1013940938