Refractive Realisms positions the township as a lens through which to engage the South African canon, endeavouring to provide a reorientation towards a black creative archive and surfacing under-represented forms of literary and cultural expression.
The book converses with the long history of realism in black South African writing to show how the refractive realisms of the contemporary township simultaneously bear witness to precarity and articulate lively diversity. It brings together narratives that take the reader through persuasive depictions of township life and its flexible identities, the failures of post-apartheid, the possibilities that emerge from the ruins of historical injustice, the practices of commodity consumption, and the limits of race and gender discourses that align with (non)belonging to township spaces.
An incisive read on the literary and cultural forms of the twenty-first-century South African township, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literary studies, identity politics, cultural studies, ethnicity and race, sociology and African Studies.
By:
Megan Jones Imprint: Routledge India Country of Publication: United Kingdom Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 310g ISBN:9781032942285 ISBN 10: 1032942282 Series:Transdisciplinary Souths Pages: 156 Publication Date:27 March 2025 Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format:Paperback Publisher's Status: Active
1. Reflections and Refractions 2. Refracted Lives 3. After Consumption 4. Ghostly Temporalities 5. The Place of Skin 6. Waste, Prejudice and Possibility 7. Conclusion: The Township Lens
Megan Jones teaches in the English Studies Department at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
