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In this article, I explore manifestations of (inter)subjectivity in relation to racial trauma and grief as portrayed through the child protagonist of K. Sello Duiker's Thirteen Cents, Azure. This discussion is informed by the representation of the black body in light of post-transitional politics, paying specific attention to Azure's connection to the historically maligned figure of Saartjie, a connection that reflects the reenactment of racial trauma in the contemporary moment. Azure's encounters with violence and loss, I posit, result in a psychic break that forms an index to the failure of recognition inherent in intersubjective relations grounded on racism. I argue that we can understand Azure's subjectivity by paying attention to the ways in which his subjectivity is mitigated by psychosocial directives on racialized existence, the symbolic potential of his repressed rage, and the transformative potential of filial connections. I contend that Azure stands as an individualized meditation on the shortcomings of the reconciliation narrative of the post-transitional period that tends to erase the more immediate consequences of South Africa's violent past for those who are most vulnerable. Ultimately, this child protagonist exemplifies the ways in which trauma and violence interfere with the most human of impulses, grief.

This paper considers Sello K. Duiker’s two novels Thirteen Cents (2000) and The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001) as precursors of recent literary trends in the South African post-transitional period. It makes an argument that these two novels anticipate the recent preoccupation with utopian idealism as a response to the challenges of the post-transitional postapartheid dispensation. To this day these texts remain unrivaled in their comprehensive meditation and elaboration on utopian idealism through their depiction of varied utopian paradigms, from singularity of pastoral solitude in Thirteen Cents to multiplicity of different monastic enclaves in The Quiet Violence of Dreams. These narratives not only pay tribute to utopian idealism through a depiction of its varied forms, but they are also a critique about its limitations and pitfalls. Hence, the narratives also foreground apocalyptic demise of the world as an alternative narrative resolution that competes with utopianism as the final and decisive panacea to the social imperfections of the postapartheid dispensation. In conclusion the paper argues that both Duiker’s texts are presciently prophetic not only about what is to come but also what needs to be done.

In this article, I explore manifestations of (inter)subjectivity in relation to racial trauma and grief as portrayed through the child protagonist of K. Sello Duiker’s Thirteen Cents, azure. This discussion is informed by the representation of the black body in light of post-transitional politics, paying specific attention to azure’s connection to the historically maligned figure of Saartjie, a connection that reflects the reenactment of racial trauma in the contemporary moment. azure’s encounters with violence and loss, I posit, result in a psychic break that forms an index to the failure of recognition inherent in intersubjective relations grounded on racism. I argue that we can understand azure’s subjectivity by paying attention to the ways in which his subjectivity is mitigated by psychosocial directives on racialized existence, the symbolic potential of his repressed rage, and the transformative potential of filial connections. I contend that azure stands as an individualized meditation on the shortcomings of the reconciliation narrative of the post-transitional period that tends to erase the more immediate consequences of South africa’s violent past for those who are most vulnerable. Ultimately, this child protagonist exemplifies the ways in which trauma and violence interfere with the most human of impulses, grief.

Following the election of Nelson Mandela as the first black president of South Africa and the formation of the first majority government of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994, it was generally assumed that new bonds between South Africa’s white and black races would be forged and a new economic and social order would be established. Hence, the new government promised to lead the transition towards an all-inclusive society that would be a reflection of the linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity of the country. This larger dream was enshrined, in part, in the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that was expected to provide a sense of moral and ethical direction for the country. This article interrogates K. Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001), Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to Our Hillbrow (2001), Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior (2007) and J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999) to uncover the extent to which the different races and classes aspire towards a hopeful and inclusive ‘non-racial’ ethical future. Reading the Rainbow nation alongside its images of nation building and inclusive development, this article builds upon dominant national symbols that portray social, economic, cultural and political reforms in the country. The four texts are evaluated on the basis of the suggested intimated freedoms in those for ‘whom there is hope’ in the ‘new’ South Africa. Locating the place of ethics in contemporary South African literature, the article interrogates the images of the ‘new’ nation and the dominant tropes of sympathy, reconciliation, friendship, forgiveness, and nation building as espoused in the four post-apartheid novels. The article further evaluates the interactions between the different racial and ethnic groups forging forward a collective multicultural nationhood in the present moment.

The recent histories of South Africa and Brazil share many commonalities. Most obviously, both have experienced a shared political history of democratic transition. Two somewhat similar forms of socio-political oppression and manipulation - military rule in Brazil (ended 1985) and South African apartheid (ended 1994) - have been replaced by democratic regimes and exceedingly optimistic hopes for the future. Yet neither transition has been as smooth as expected. Consequently, a liminal situation has been created, where past and present discourses compete for space. This has recently been explored in each country's respective literatures: K. Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams and Rodrigo de Souza Leão's All Dogs Are Blue are just two examples. This article will explore the common theme of madness in these novels to highlight liminality. In particular, I argue that the treatment of insanity denies the patient's individuality and replicates the identity politics of the colonial situation. This, I suggest, reveals how postcolonial modernity in Brazil and South Africa relies on a continuing and normalised psycho-politics of otherness. Further, I will consider questions revolving around language, reliability and everyday emotions, focusing on the uncomfortable juxtaposition of global, national and local in both countries as they struggle to enter the modern world order. Ultimately, the only way we can alleviate madness and harness the social benefits of modernity and globalisation comes through accepting difference and understanding the specific individual circumstances of those we call 'mad'.

According to Gqola (2009) this 'masculinist spectacle' is described as follows: 'By masculinist spectacle I refer to the hypervisible, and self-authorising performance of patriarchal masculinity in public spaces, where such performance hints at masculine violence or a contest between forms of manhood' (Gqola, 64). [...]the narrative paradigms and literary forms chosen and used in these narratives are linked and connected to the particular ideological conception of the world. [...]tragedy seeks to grasp the soul in its vision of the real beyond the surface issues of social status and practical utility. Mhlongo seems thus to be validating what Henri Bergson has said about the prerequisite of a comic effect: \"To produce the whole of its effect, then, the comic demands something like a momentary anesthesia of the heart\" (63-64). [...]for the comic effect to be functional, human affairs should be portrayed with unruffled indifference and minimal emotional involvement as Mhlongo is doing in this narrative.

This research paper aims at carrying out an in-depth analysis of the street kid phenomenon in the new South Africa. Even though no country worldwide is spared by the unsightly spectacle of grungy children in rags roaming the streets, holding a begging bowl and touting passers-by for alms, there is no denying that street life in South African cities has picked up steam in the rainbow-nation since the demise of apartheid. On that score, we thought fit to single out a postliberation novel that portrays in no uncertain terms the hardscrabble existence of South African street youths: Thirteen Cents by Kabello Sello Duiker (1974-2005). The relevance of this novel to our article is two-pronged. Firstly, it offers a scathing critique, through a daring and unsparing as well as blow by blow description, of what it means to be a street boy in post-racial South Africa. Secondly, Thirteen Cents, to be sure, is an indictment of South African society, not least powers that be.

In her article \"Commodity and Waste as National Allegory in Recent South African and Post-Soviet Fiction\" Alla Ivanchikova analyzes the issue of commodity in its relation to identity. The article contains a reading of two novels: The Quiet Violence of Dreams by K. Sello Duiker and Dukhless. Povest o nenastoiaschem cheloveke (Douh-Less: The Tale of an Unreal Person) by Sergey Minaev. Rapid political changes, both in South Africa and the former Soviet Bloc were accompanied both by rapid changes in the practices of consumption and also by often inconsistent cultural efforts to establish the meaning of these practices. Ivanchikova argues that in contemporary South African and post-socialist Russian culture there is an attempt to reconstitute identity through the discourse of commodity consumption and self-sale. Further, Ivanchikova examines the contradictions of consumption and self-sale in the \"third world,\" the issues of Western privilege and power, and the notion of prostitution as a symbol of cultural anxiety about a nation's future.

The judiciary, which has ruled against the executive over 'irrational' decisions contrary to the constitution, has been under a permanent state of attack during [Jacob Zuma]'s term. It is not difficult to see why: one case pending in the high court calls for a review of the national prosecutor's 2009 decision to drop corruption and fraud charges against Zuma. This could yet lead to Zuma walking the trail from the presidency to prison - a personal nightmare he is loudly opposing through the realignment and manipulation of state institutions, from the prosecuting authorities to the intelligence services. It was a concept embraced by South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, as his government set about the task of racial reconciliation and nation building. But on the evidence of 2008's xenophobic vigilantism that left over 60 immigrant Africans dead and thousands displaced, of the ongoing incidences of 'corrective rape' of gays and lesbians or of a national discourse increasingly characterized by racial discordance, Rainbow Nationalism was more an ethereal dream than a structured reality.