Tony Simoes da Silva

Narrating a White Africa: autobiography, race and history

The last three decades have witnessed a radical transformation in the political and social make-up of Southern Africa, evidenced especially than in the areas of race and power relations. ‘Narrating a White Africa: autobiography, race and history’ examines the ways in which life-writing forms are being ‘conscripted’ to make sense of the fraught and traumatic political and historical conditions of postcolonial Africa. That in the context of life-writing this occurs through the highly charged notions of intimate suffering and traumatic aftermath highlights the significance of the link between race, identity and history in contemporary memoirs by White African writers.The last three decades have witnessed a radical transformation in the political and social make-up of Southern Africa, evidenced especially than in the areas of race and power relations. ‘Narrating a White Africa: autobiography, race and history’ examines the ways in which life-writing forms are being ‘conscripted’ to make sense of the fraught and traumatic political and historical conditions of postcolonial Africa. That in the context of life-writing this occurs through the highly charged notions of intimate suffering and traumatic aftermath highlights the significance of the link between race, identity and history in contemporary memoirs by White African writers.

Rethinking Marginality: class, identity and desire in contemporary Australian writing

Abstract This essay fuses together a critical examination of contemporary Australian literary writings and a personal meditation about the author’s own ‘coming into being’ as an Australian: as citizen, critic and academic. The cross-cultural dimensions of this process are explored with reference to contemporary cultural studies of postcolonial and diasporic experiences of identity, as well as through detailed readings of a range of Australian novels. The paper foregrounds a position of self-interested knowledge, both as a recognition of the agonistic fluidity of cross-cultural identity and of the intensely personal nature characteristic of much literary fiction by ethnic minority individuals.Abstract This essay fuses together a critical examination of contemporary Australian literary writings and a personal meditation about the author’s own ‘coming into being’ as an Australian: as citizen, critic and academic. The cross-cultural dimensions of this process are explored with reference to contemporary cultural studies of postcolonial and diasporic experiences of identity, as well as through detailed readings of a range of Australian novels. The paper foregrounds a position of self-interested knowledge, both as a recognition of the agonistic fluidity of cross-cultural identity and of the intensely personal nature characteristic of much literary fiction by ethnic minority individuals.

The Language of Recognition: Carolyn Slaughter and Alexandra Fuller

This chapter focuses on two memoirs detailing childhoods lived in southern Africa on the cusp of momentous historical and political upheaval, Carolyn Slaughter’s Before the Knife (2002) and Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (2002). Both authors came to Africa as the children of white British migrants, the former as the daughter of a minor British colonial administrator, the latter as the daughter of a family moving to Rhodesia in the aftermath of Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), which took place in 1965. Before the Knife is set in ‘the dying days of the British Empire’ (Slaughter, 2002: 13), while the second work encompasses a period that sees its author go from being a British subject to being a Rhodesian, a Rhodesian-Zimbabwean, a Zimbabwean and in time a resident of the USA, possibly naturalized as well. The contrasting backgrounds, combined with Fuller’s personal details, succinctly convey the rapid pace of change in the post-World War II period as successive European empires collapsed throughout the world. Essentially works concerned with the story of an individual self, the memoirs constitute also documents that detail the impact of social, political and historical changes as seen through the perspective of white people in Africa.

Veni, vidi, vici: postcolonial studies comes of age

This review article offers a critical assessment of Ato Quaysons Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (2012), engaging in passing with a debate between postcolonial theorists that appeared also in 2012 in the New Literary History (43.1 & 2). It posits that the History presents postcolonial literature, and indeed postcolonial studies, as much too settled fields, a view clearly at odds both with their genesis and with that reflected in the essays in NLH.This review article offers a critical assessment of Ato Quaysons Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (2012), engaging in passing with a debate between postcolonial theorists that appeared also in 2012 in the New Literary History (43.1 & 2). It posits that the History presents postcolonial literature, and indeed postcolonial studies, as much too settled fields, a view clearly at odds both with their genesis and with that reflected in the essays in NLH.

The Chief Taxidermist has left the Museum

1. Mozambique’s Museu de História Natural, in Maputo, a grand old building in the higher end of town, remains one of the oddest and most graceful reminders of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique. Both in its scientific mission and in the building where it is now housed, the Museum stands as a constant reminder of colonialism’s unexpected acts of benevolence. Officially founded in 1913, the Natural History Museum moved into its present location in 1932. It is a remarkable building in a city largely devoid of architectural landmarks, and is situated in its most prestigious suburb, Polana, before and beyond independence the preserve of the rich and powerful. It is also a startlingly white mishmash of spires and spirals, at once derivative and banal, and a dramatically bizarre presence amidst the dense foliage of the luxuriant flamboyant, majestic palm trees and a myriad of shrubs in red, green and yellow hues. When its windows are open, which is often, the Museum gives out mixed messages that both invite in and send away. Seen from the outside and through its barred open windows, the building looks cavernous and foreboding, all peeling window frames and walls covered in red dust stains. But once inside it is cool and welcoming. Its floors are of a beautiful, dark marble, grown more stately with age, and a different kind of marble has been used on some of the walls. There are no chairs on which to sit and take in the Museum’s heady mixture of stuffed animals, fake vegetation and painted murals (including one by Mozambique’s perhaps foremost visual artist, painter and sculptor, Malangatana Valente). It is possible, however, to perch oneself carefully on the edge of the dividing low walls that separate out all exhibits. Topped with little rough pebbles, after a while sitting down on them can be quite painful.

Rosemary Raza, In Their Own Words: British Women Writers and India 1740–1857 . New Delhi, Oxford, and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. xxxii + 289 pp. ISBN: 978-0-19-5677080-9 (hbk.). £19.99;

Book review of: Rosemary Raza, In Their Own Words: British Women Writers and India 17401857. New Delhi, Oxford, and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. xxxii + 289 pp. ISBN: 978-0-19-5677080-9 (hbk.). £19.99;

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