HOMO LUDENS IN THE RUINS: THE PLAYFUL REIMAGINATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN SOUTH AFRICAN NOVELS
HOMO LUDENS IN THE RUINS: THE PLAYFUL REIMAGINATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN SOUTH AFRICAN NOVELS

Summary/Abstract: This paper delves into how post-apartheid South African fiction functions as a ludic narrative that challenges the idea of a reconstructed national identity. These stories, existing in the space between the wreckage of apartheid and the still-hopeful promises of freedom, do not only bring back the trauma but transform it through sarcasm, metafiction, and the mixing of genres. With this occasion, the concept of Homo Ludens turns out to be a cultural agent that deals with contradictions and new possibilities. In this way, literature becomes a theatrical space where identity is not something that comes from the past or is forced upon you, but it is an improvised one – a mixture of joy, chaos, and morality. This playful overhaul of identity themes resonates not only with age-old symbols but also with contemporary issues.

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