The writer as storyteller?
Date
1988-03-07
Authors
Vaughan, Michael
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Abstract
In recent times, new schools of literary theory have appeared in
South Africa. First came the materialists to challenge the liberal
hegemony, and then the structuralists, who, in some of the later
versions of theory, see the materialists themselves as too much
wedded to liberalism and humanism. And then there is also Njabulo
Ndebele, who seems to be something of a phenomenon in himself.
Perhaps this is because he is African, not white. Literary theory in
South Africa is, of course, largely monopolised by white academics,
and this has no doubt, some consequences for the character of th resultant theory. It is noticeable, for example, with perhaps few
exceptions, that materialist and structuralist theorists in South
Africa derive their conceptual apparatus from the West, intact and
ready-formed. All that remains is to apply it, as well as may be, to
the local material. In other words, such local theorists art in an
essentially pupilage relationship to the theorists of the West, who
are vastly more sophisticated, inventive and original. Indeed, it
could be said that the real theoretical work is being done in the
West, and only imitated here, in a muffled sort of way. This is not
said with the intention of deriding the efforts of local academics
who attempt to grapple with and apply materialist and structuralist
theories. I am, after all, one of those involved! There seems to be
no other way, and this way does offer a certain scope. Imitation is
never simply repetition, and perhaps this imitation is never, in any
case, simply imitation. If local critical theory is derivative, this
is a reflection on the nature of the relationship between South
Africa and the West, on the nature of the South African education
system, and on the separation of the upper reaches of the education
system from the major realities of South African life. The separation
of academic life from social life makes it very difficult, if not
impossible, to be conceptually productive.
All this is by way prelude to some consideration of the
distinctiveness of Ndebele's contribution to literary theory in South
Africa.....
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 7 March, 1988
Keywords
Ndebele, Njabulo S., South African fiction (English). History and criticism