Christopher Warnes
Biographic Data
| ID | 149040 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Warnes |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Warnes |
| SIGNATURE | WARNES C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 7 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Writing, Politics and Change in South Africa after Apartheid
This book shows how South African writing can help us to understand change after apartheid. It aims to shift the attention of literary criticism away from a narrow set of highbrow South African authors and towards a wider range of texts, including popular fiction. The object of analysis, at its largest level, is the South African polity as it veered between the hopeful optimism of the 'Rainbow nation' under Nelson Mandela, the murderous muddling …
Magical Realism and Literature
Writing Crime in the New South Africa
The explosion of crime fiction in contemporary South Africa requires explanation in terms of its relations with actual crime in that country, with crime novels from elsewhere, and with trends in South African literary history. Taking issue with recent criticism which sees in the genre a turning away from historicity and the political, the article argues that the novels of Deon Meyer and Margie Orford display an engagement with major post-aparthei…
Everyone Is Guilty”
The plaasroman (farm novel) of the 1920s and 1930s allowed Afrikaans writers to assert and explore a bond between the farmer and the soil, a bond that stands metonymically for the relations between culture, place and nation. This essay argues that Etienne Van Heerden’s 1986 novel, Toorberg, adapts and transforms the conventions of the plaasroman genre to give voice to a complicitous critique of the consequences of Afrikaner racial exclusivity in …
Welcome to Msawawa
Critics’ comments on the dustcovers of Niq Mhlongo’s novels, Dog Eat Dog (2004) and After Tears (2007), praise them for their ability to capture “the raw colour of the township” and Mhlongo is described as “the authentic voice [ ... ] of being young, black and living in the township in a new democracy”. His contribution to an ongoing art project called remotewords run by the German artists Achim Mohné and Uta Kopp, seeks to represent Soweto on it…
Naturalizing the Supernatural
Starting from a basic understanding of magical realism as a mode of narration that seeks to naturalize the supernatural, this essay draws a distinction between faith and irreverence in magical realist discourse. It offers a brief account of magical realism's conceptual and literary history, analyses the state of current critical discourse and suggests ways in which nuanced modes of reading magical realist literature can be developed. Drawing from…
Avatars of Amadis
The hermeneutics of vagueness
Notwithstanding its popularity and the presence of clear literary critical definitions, the term magical realism continues to attract controversy and confusion. This essay explores the reasons for this state of affairs, and proposes solutions for it. It rejects the vagueness that accompanies much criticism of magical realism, and advocates an approach that attends to narrative technologies of form and structure, while also insisting that cultural…
Writing Crime in the New South Africa
The explosion of crime fiction in contemporary South Africa requires explanation in terms of its relations with actual crime in that country, with crime novels from elsewhere, and with trends in South African literary history. Taking issue with recent criticism which sees in the genre a turning away from historicity and the political, the article argues that the novels of Deon Meyer and Margie Orford display an engagement with major post-aparthei…
The hermeneutics of vagueness
Notwithstanding its popularity and the presence of clear literary critical definitions, the term magical realism continues to attract controversy and confusion. This essay explores the reasons for this state of affairs, and proposes solutions for it. It rejects the vagueness that accompanies much criticism of magical realism, and advocates an approach that attends to narrative technologies of form and structure, while also insisting that cultural…
Welcome to Msawawa
Critics’ comments on the dustcovers of Niq Mhlongo’s novels, Dog Eat Dog (2004) and After Tears (2007), praise them for their ability to capture “the raw colour of the township” and Mhlongo is described as “the authentic voice [ ... ] of being young, black and living in the township in a new democracy”. His contribution to an ongoing art project called remotewords run by the German artists Achim Mohné and Uta Kopp, seeks to represent Soweto on it…
Naturalizing the Supernatural
Starting from a basic understanding of magical realism as a mode of narration that seeks to naturalize the supernatural, this essay draws a distinction between faith and irreverence in magical realist discourse. It offers a brief account of magical realism's conceptual and literary history, analyses the state of current critical discourse and suggests ways in which nuanced modes of reading magical realist literature can be developed. Drawing from…
Avatars of Amadis
Naturalizing the Supernatural
Starting from a basic understanding of magical realism as a mode of narration that seeks to naturalize the supernatural, this essay draws a distinction between faith and irreverence in magical realist discourse. It offers a brief account of magical realism's conceptual and literary history, analyses the state of current critical discourse and suggests ways in which nuanced modes of reading magical realist literature can be developed. Drawing from…
Avatars of Amadis
The hermeneutics of vagueness
Notwithstanding its popularity and the presence of clear literary critical definitions, the term magical realism continues to attract controversy and confusion. This essay explores the reasons for this state of affairs, and proposes solutions for it. It rejects the vagueness that accompanies much criticism of magical realism, and advocates an approach that attends to narrative technologies of form and structure, while also insisting that cultural…
Everyone Is Guilty”
The plaasroman (farm novel) of the 1920s and 1930s allowed Afrikaans writers to assert and explore a bond between the farmer and the soil, a bond that stands metonymically for the relations between culture, place and nation. This essay argues that Etienne Van Heerden’s 1986 novel, Toorberg, adapts and transforms the conventions of the plaasroman genre to give voice to a complicitous critique of the consequences of Afrikaner racial exclusivity in …
Welcome to Msawawa
Critics’ comments on the dustcovers of Niq Mhlongo’s novels, Dog Eat Dog (2004) and After Tears (2007), praise them for their ability to capture “the raw colour of the township” and Mhlongo is described as “the authentic voice [ ... ] of being young, black and living in the township in a new democracy”. His contribution to an ongoing art project called remotewords run by the German artists Achim Mohné and Uta Kopp, seeks to represent Soweto on it…
Writing Crime in the New South Africa
The explosion of crime fiction in contemporary South Africa requires explanation in terms of its relations with actual crime in that country, with crime novels from elsewhere, and with trends in South African literary history. Taking issue with recent criticism which sees in the genre a turning away from historicity and the political, the article argues that the novels of Deon Meyer and Margie Orford display an engagement with major post-aparthei…
Magical Realism and Literature
Writing, Politics and Change in South Africa after Apartheid
This book shows how South African writing can help us to understand change after apartheid. It aims to shift the attention of literary criticism away from a narrow set of highbrow South African authors and towards a wider range of texts, including popular fiction. The object of analysis, at its largest level, is the South African polity as it veered between the hopeful optimism of the 'Rainbow nation' under Nelson Mandela, the murderous muddling …
Art (6 works) · Literature (5 works) · History (4 works) · Literature, Magical Realism, García Márquez (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · South African History and Culture (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Law (3 works)