Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries. (Cross/Cultures - Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English, 157)

Borders separate but also connect self and other, and literary texts not only enact these bordering processes, but form part of such processes. This book gestures towards a borderless world, stepping, as it were, with thousand-mile boots from south to north (even across the Atlantic), from South Africa to Scandinavia. It also shows how literary texts model and remodel borders and bordering processes in rich and meaningful local contexts. The essays assembled here analyse the crossing and negotiation of borders and boundaries in works by Nadine Gordimer, Ingrid Winterbach, Deneys Reitz, Janet Suzman, Marlene van Niekerk, A.S. Byatt, Thomas Harris, Frank A. Jenssen, Eben Venter, Antjie Krog, and others under different signs or conceptual points of attraction. These signs include a spiritual turn, eventfulness, self-understanding, ethnic and linguistic mobilization, performative chronotopes, the grotesque, the carceral, the rhetorical, and the interstitial. Contributors: Ileana Dimitriu, Heilna du Plooy, John Gouws, Anne Heith, Lida Krüger, Susan Meyer, Adéle Nel, Ellen Rees, Johan Schimanski, Tony Ullyatt, Phil van Schalkwyk, Hein Viljoen Representing The Unpresentable: Between The Secular And The Spiritual In Gordimer's Post-apartheid Fiction / Ileana Dimitriu -- Narrative Dynamics And Boundaries: The Undermining Of Event And Eventfulness In The Book Of Happenstance By Ingrid Winterbach / Heilna Du Plooy -- Deneys Reitz And The Bounds Of Self-understanding / John Gouws -- Challenging And Negotiating National Borders: Sami And Tornedalian Alternative Literary History / Anne Heith -- The Visual Representation Of The Boundary Between Past And Present: Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard And Suzman's The Free State / Lida Kruger -- Earth As Home: Nature And Refuges/living Spaces In Some Afrikaans Narratives / Susan Meyer -- Borders And Abjection In Triomf / Adele Nel -- Body, Corpus, And Corpse: Delineating Henrik Ibsen In A.s. Byatt's The Biographer's Tale / Ellen Rees -- Pronouncing It The Porder: Ascribing Aesthetic Values To External And Internal National Borders In Frank A. Jenssen's The Salt Bin / Johan Schimanski -- The Normal And The Carceral: Boundaries In Thomas Harris's The Silence Of The Lambs / Tony Ullyatt -- The Aid Of Rhetoric And The Rhetoric Of Aids: Eben Venter's Ek Stamel Ek Sterwe / Phil Van Schalkwyk -- Navigating The Interstitial: Boundaries In Lady Anne By Antjie Krog / Hein Viljoen. Edited By Hein Viljoen. International Conference Proceedings. Includes Bibliographical References. Content: Table of Contents Acknowledgements Illustrations Introduction Ileana Dimitriu: Representing the Unpresentable: Between the Secular and the Spiritual in Gordimer's Post-Apartheid Fiction Heilna du Plooy: Narrative Dynamics and Boundaries: The Undermining of Event and Eventfulness in The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach John Gouws: Deneys Reitz and the Bounds of Self-Understanding Anne Heith: Challenging and Negotiating National Borders: Sami and Tornedalian AlterNative Literary History Lida Kruger: The Visual Representation of the Boundary Between Past and Present: Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Suzman's The Free State Susan Meyer: Earth as Home: Nature and Refuges/Living Spaces in Some Afrikaans Narratives Adele Nel: Borders and Abjection in Triomf Ellen Rees: Body, Corpus, and Corpse: Delineating Henrik Ibsen in A.S. Byatt's The Biographer's Tale Johan Schimanski: Pronouncing it the Porder: Ascribing Aesthetic Values to External and Internal National Borders in Frank A. Jenssen's The Salt Bin Tony Ullyatt: The Normal and the Carceral: Boundaries in Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs Phil van Schalkwyk: The Aid of Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of AIDS: Eben Venter's Ek stamel ek sterwe Hein Viljoen: Navigating the Interstitial: Boundaries in Lady Anne by Antjie Krog Notes on the Contributors Borders separate but also connect self and other, and literary texts not only enact these bordering processes, but form part of such processes. This book gestures towards a borderless world, stepping, as it were, with thousand-mile boots from south to north (even across the Atlantic), from South Africa to Scandinavia. It also shows how literary texts model and remodel borders and bordering processes in rich and meaningful local contexts. The essays assembled here analyse the crossing and negotiation of borders and boundaries in works by Nadine Gordimer, Ingrid Winterbach, Deneys Reitz, Janet Suzman, Marlene van Niekerk, A.S. Byatt, Thomas Harris, Frank A. Jenssen, Eben Venter, Antjie Krog, and others under different signs or conceptual points of attraction. These signs include a spiritual turn, eventfulness, self-understanding, ethnic and linguistic mobilization, performative chronotopes, the grotesque, the carceral, the rhetorical, and the interstitial. Contributors: Ileana Dimitriu, Heilna du Plooy, John Gouws, Anne Heith, Lida Kruger, Susan Meyer, Adele Nel, Ellen Rees, Johan Schimanski, Tony Ullyatt, Phil van Schalkwyk, Hein Viljoen.