Pathi’s sister is still troubling
- Authors: Naidoo, Savani
- Date: 2023-03-30
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African fiction (English) 21st century , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century , Diaries -- Authorship , Books Reviews
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/408942 , vital:70539
- Description: My thesis is a collection of micro fiction, flash fiction, fairy tales, vignettes and short stories which explore the tension of being both an insider and an outsider. I have access to different cultures without belonging to any of them: as a child, my family moved from a South African Indian community to a formerly whites-only suburb; as an adult I have lived in South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan. My prose draws on my life experiences, family legends, neighbourhood gossip, news reports and historical events to question norms and ideas that I may have taken for granted had I been fully inside a single culture. In my thesis I frequently spell words phonetically to mimic how I hear or remember them. I also borrow words from languages I don’t speak. I want the languages I use and mix to corrupt each other, as Raymond Federman put it, in order to better express the voices and contexts of the communities I draw inspiration from. Kuzhali Manickavel’s Things We Found During the Autopsy showed me that culturally rich imagery can be used without interrupting narrative flow with explanations. I am also influenced by the poetic sense of rhythm and melody of Lydia Davis’s minimalist prose, and by Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, where each concise short story stands alone but together creates a broad understanding of people and place. Anthologies such as PP/FF, edited by Peter Conners, and My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, edited by Kate Bernheimer, have inspired me to be bold in finding the form that best allows each narrative to be told. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2023
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A sea is brewing
- Authors: Mama, Sibongakonke
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Xhosa poetry 21st century , South African poetry (English) 21st century , Psychic trauma in literature , Women in literature , Diaries -- Authorship , Books Reviews
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406281 , vital:70255
- Description: My thesis is a collection of poems that draws on the complexity of not belonging in places, with people, or within families. I engage my own alienation as well as that of my parents, black people generally, and women in particular. I take inspiration from Uruguayan poet Fabián Severo’s autobiographical long poem, Night in the North, which chronicles the poet’s experience of growing up in linguistic and cultural borderlands. I am also influenced by Chilean poet Carmen García’s ability to move between the concrete and the abstract in translations of her poems from the collection Gotas sobre loza fría. As much as my poems traverse a metaphysical space, they are also set in concrete places – Tutura, Gcuwa, Johannesburg, and Cape Town. Like Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña’s Spit Temple, I move between the physical and spiritual realms for a better understanding of my estrangement. I also draw on South African poet Mangaliso Buzani’s book, a naked bone, for its fluid combination of line and prose poetry. I write in isiXhosa and English as a reflection of my mixed cultural and linguistic existence. I seek to harness rhythm and harmony, as well as the quiet, between words. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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Chaos!
- Authors: Ngwenya, Thembalethu Sabrina
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Books Reviews , South African prose literature (English) 21st century , South African fiction (English) 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406298 , vital:70256
- Description: Chaos! is a combination of short prose forms in fragments that tackles difficult topics such as troubled marriages, child molestation, rape, infidelity and abuse in every way, whether it is mental, emotional or physical. The stories contain a lot of horrific and violent acts that, often times in this day and age, happen behind closed doors or sometimes even openly, yet not a lot of people are ready to talk about these topics. In my thesis, I go into the minds of those that are abusive and those that are on the receiving end of abuse. In doing so, I aim to explore all the dynamics of abuse. Abusers, as I have portrayed in my thesis, tend to have a deranged sense of reasoning in performing abusive acts and one thing that is important to note is that, more than likely, in their own heads and according to their own reasoning, the behaviour that they act on is very much rational and reasonable. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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Fractured flowers
- Authors: Cunningham, Cornelia
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African essays (English) 21st century , Books Reviews , South African fiction (English) 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406226 , vital:70250
- Description: This portfolio contains extracts of my reflective journals that I wrote throughout the course of the year. My poetics essay, four book reviews, community engagement report and my reflection regarding the reader report is also attached. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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Portraits
- Authors: Fredericks, Gaireyah
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Kaaps , Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Books Reviews , Afrikaans essays 21st century , Short stories, Afrikaans 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406238 , vital:70251
- Description: Die portfolio bestaan yt reflections op my writing process during die course, my reading, my poetics essay en vier boek resensies. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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The Daily Sun subscribers
- Authors: Mahe, Xolani
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Books Reviews , South African fiction (English) 21st century , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406276 , vital:70254
- Description: My thesis comprises interlinked short stories, verfabula, sketches, fragments, flash fiction, folktales, anecdotes, and the epistolary form. I write in English tinged with IsiXhosa. In terms of specific influences, the collection is strongly influenced by the experimental writing of Kathy Acker and Samuel Delany notably the uncompromising ways in which they contort formal grammar and sexuality, the defamiliarizing function of the phantasmagoria in the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch, the techniques of the picturesque as used by Amos Tutuola, and, importantly, narration in the present tense as deployed in Dambudzo Marechera’s House of Hunger which results in negation and subversion of the narrative depiction of the past, the present, and the future. On the stylistic level, I am strongly influenced by the haunting surrealism of Sony Labou Tansi, the eccentric meditations of Julio Cortázar, and the iconoclastic rants of Lesego Rampolokeng. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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Alien crosstalk
- Authors: Stuart-Watson, Andrew Joseph
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , American fiction History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294515 , vital:57228
- Description: Alien Crosstalk , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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Gray
- Authors: Fouché, James De Clerque
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Detective and mystery stories, South African (English) 21st century , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , English fiction 20th century History and criticism , American fiction African American authors History and criticism , American fiction 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292715 , vital:57009
- Description: My thesis is a crime fiction novella. I’m moved by the idea of developing feasible, relatable characters with flaws – a staple of the crime fiction genre. I also appreciate how crime serves as a platform from which to launch into human drama, the way James Ellroy does in The Black Dahlia. While my protagonist endures trials on a near Jobian scale, the narrative meditates on the consequences of crime and conflict in a satirical way. Writers like Ross Macdonald, Raymond Chandler, Flannery O’Connor, China Miéville and Derek Raymond have inspired me with their sharp imagery and unconventional characterization techniques. These techniques accelerate the ease with which a reader can step into the shoes of any given narrator. Their writing is crisp, uncluttered and uncomplicated. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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Hiding no scars
- Authors: Mhlongo, Sanele
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African poetry (English) 21st century , Interpersonal relations in literature , Diaries -- Authorship , South African essays (English) 21st century , Russian poetry 20th century History and criticism , South African fiction (English) 21st century History and criticism , Greek poetry History and criticism , German poetry 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294311 , vital:57190
- Description: My thesis is a collection of free-verse narrative and prose poetry focusing on rural life and people, as well as my personal relationships. Poetry through its play with language has the ability to say things with immediacy and allows unnoticed things to acquire relevance. It gives me a framework within which to express difficult themes such as family relationships, death, solitude, and poverty. In writing these poems I have drawn on the work of Constantine P. Cavafy, particularly the poems ‘Ithaka’, ‘The City’ and ‘As Much As You Can’ which showcase his consistently simple narrative style that covers profound subjects. I have also been influenced by Paul Celan’s poetry in his collection Breathturn Into Timestead where poems such as ‘Corona’, ‘In praise of remoteness’ and ‘Twelve Years’ demonstrate how poetry can have pace through tightly controlled yet experimental structure. I have also drawn on Anna Akhmatova’s symbolic poetry, specifically the poems ‘Now the pillow’s’, ‘He loved three things, alive’ and ‘Prologue’ from the selection Anna Akhmatova: Selected Poems which has its intention the re-creation of the past in the present. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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Praying mantis
- Authors: Kenene, Thobeka
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , Portuguese fiction 20th century History and criticism , Russian fiction 20th century History and criticism , Zimbabwean fiction (English) 20th century History and criticism , American fiction 20th century History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292726 , vital:57010
- Description: (Prologue) I could only see in black and white as if I had travelled through time. I was the star of the medieval people who waited on me. The city was Johannesburg where strange faces called me a traitor because I was an educated black person. I hid between the skyscrapers and ran into a mirror image of myself as a man. “I write this book,” he said to his readers, “To invoke a yearning in our youth to awaken from slumber. To set examples for them to desist from characters like Velesazi and Nongendi, and imitate Nomsa and Themba. And also, to contribute to Xhosa literature.” He signed off by calling himself our servant. These are the words from the note my great-grandfather left me. We walked together across a barren field and past a graveyard. I was feeling tired and lost; I wanted to get home as fast as possible. We quickened our step and entered a church site. Inside the church were all my close relatives. I saw myself on stage looking down at them, and when I opened my mouth to sing, they began laughing at me. I imagined him in his 1917 suit, as a writer, penning down his first novel that is dedicated to his mother. His round cheeks enveloped in a haze of candle light. He visited my dream in 2012 and in the dream he asked me, “Do you see?” I said, “Yes, I see.” My great-grandfather hummed a song from his belly. I inhaled deeply into my belly and then exhaled a sound. Together we hummed this song that made everyone fall silent and listen. In the dream I could feel my lungs expanding and deflating along to the rhythm of the song. As my great-grandfather and I sang it, the night lamps shone brighter. I had become my great-grandfather, wearing his suit and black leather shoes. His friends were my friends. They turned and asked me what my clan name was. When I told them, they whispered something among themselves. One of them said to me, “Unogcwabevu.” I saw a white unknown woman who was afraid of me. I told her it is going to be okay, and that I would not harm her. But the colour of my skin frightened her. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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The memory altar
- Authors: Alexander-McKenna, Hilary Jane
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) History and criticism , South African fiction (English) History and criticism , Yuknavitch, Lidia Criticism and interpretation , American fiction Criticism and interpretation , COVID-19 (Disease) in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/263533 , vital:53636
- Description: My thesis is a novella that casts a sideways glance at the real world that at times seems stranger than fiction. The novella is written as a work of realistic fiction, with a plot, characters, timelines and location placed in present time, reflecting real current events. My work is strongly influenced by writers such as Ivan Vladislavić whose Portrait with Keys uses a slice of life narrative voice that observes overlays of public and private realities; Marguerite Duras’ use of cinematic storytelling and deeply personal exposure in The Lover and Yann Andréa Steiner; Kate Zambreno’s depiction of inner chaos against the chaos of an anonymous city in Green Girl; Otessa Moshfegh who makes the minutiae of the day-to-day seem significant in My Year of Rest and Relaxation; and Samuel Beckett’s finely crafted streams of consciousness, in his works of prose and drama, revealing the intimate perspectives of insiders. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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