Rewriting Memory After Apartheid: Cultural Memory, Narrative Instability, and Testimony in South African Literature
Rewriting Memory After Apartheid: Cultural Memory, Narrative Instability, and Testimony in South African Literature

Summary/Abstract: By focusing on a comparative analysis of J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace and Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull the paper maps the writing of memory in post-apartheid South Africa. This analysis shows that the post-apartheid writing of memory is characterized by fragmented identities and by its testimony/history and collective existence dualities in order to portray its fragile nature. Far from creating a unifying narrative, both works highlight fragmented national identities and social memory through collective struggle against the reality of violence and unfinished histories. It can be concluded from these two works that post-apartheid writings reflect the continued issues surrounding memory and as such are not monuments to oneness but monuments to its enduring struggle.

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