Shells on the Shores of Memory draws together South African Coloured and Indian narratives
about different periods in South African history to show how the literary representation of the
colonial and the apartheid period diverge and at times converge. In so doing it addresses
these narratives not merely in terms of their post-coloniality or subalternity but rather
through the prism of the inescapable significance of space and place for issues of South
African identity formation and struggles. In addition to its thematic focus on the way in which
the violence(s) and vulnerabilities that play out on both a public and an intimate level are
contingent upon one's socio-spatial environment this study also approaches contradictory
emotional responses such as pride nostalgia shame or guilt as corollaries in the
socio-spatial paradigm. Marrying insights from psychoanalysis cultural studies and
poststructuralism this book offers a fresh comparative approach to two disparate writing
traditions and trajectories that have largely been kept separate in academic and public debate
thus enriching our understanding of post-apartheid literature and offering a valuable addition
to the field of postcolonial studies.CONTENTS1 Introduction: Memory after Violence
.............................................................. 11.1 Terminology: Ethnic and
Race Labels ............................................................ 41.2 Violence(s)
Vulnerability and Shame ............................................................ 52 The
(Un)speakability of Indian Ocean Slavery:Yvette Christiansë's Unconfessed
................................................................... 152.1 Ambiguous Silences
and Hertseer as Metaphor .............................................. 162.2 (Un)writing
Violence through Autodiegesis .................................................... 252.3
Situational Ethics and the Predicament ofBeing a Mother and a Slave .......... 272.4 Sila's
Ambiguous Revenge Visions ................................................................
312.5 Conclusion: What is dis-appearing?
................................................................ 353 (Re)writing Indian
Indenture in South Africa:Aziz Hassim's Revenge of Kali
....................................................................... 363.1 Aziz Hassim's
Revenge of Kali and the Retrievalof Natal's Sugarcane Hills
............................................................................... 393.2 The
(Un)speakability of the Female Experience of Indenture ......................... 403.3
Displacement and (Dis)empowerment: The Male Experience of Indentureand the Indentured Diaspora
............................................................................ 453.4 Conclusion:
Reclaiming the Indian Ocean Paradigm ...................................... 554 Odyssey of a
Dissident District:District Six Memorialisation and Literature
.................................................... 574.1 The Wasteland of District Six
......................................................................... 574.2 Nostalgic
Reminiscences: Cape Town's District Six Museum ........................ 584.3 Emasculation and
(Dis)empowerment in Waiting for Leilaand A Walk in the Night
.............................................................................. 634.4 From
Shameful Political Inertia to Political Transcendencein La Guma and Dangor
.................................................................................. 704.5
Nostalgia and Politics in Richard Rive's Buckingham Palace ........................ 734.6
Conclusion: Negotiating Deterministic Despair and Nostalgic Hope .........
