The Inward and Outward Trajectories of the Shaman's Journeys

Mediation in Ben Okri's Dangerous Love and Zakes Mda's The Sculptors of Mapungubwe

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20156010
AutoresSope Maithufi (0000-0003-3936-9801, University of South Africa, autor correspondente)
Ano2015
Volume31
Fascículo2
Páginas81-93
Data de publicação2015-04-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387
EditoraUnisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA)
DOI10.1080/02564718.2015.1058551
OpenAlexW2282062980
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas9

This article teases out a dialogue between Zakes Mda's The Sculptors of Mapungubwe (2013) and Ben Okri's Dangerous love (1988), fictions that foreground art and delineate it as a shamanic ritual site. Having provided synopses of ritual in these two novels, the discussion then goes on to remark on the concern with this key subject in these novels’ respective scholarships. Thereafter, the examination moves on to suggest that these overlapping highlight the tendency in African literatures to turn to spirituality and to the figure of the shaman during challenging political transitions. The proposal is that the shaman reconfigures memory into secular mediations of other subjects’ trauma, making these intercessions operate in mutually inclusive private and public complexities. The rest of the article considers the depictions of two such intricacies: the artist's struggle to establish a narrative of mourning in Dangerous love, and the socially oriented dance and sculpture in The Sculptors of Mapungubwe

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Linguistics · Literature · Mediation · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sculpture · Shamanism · Social science · Sociology · Spirituality · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · South African History and Culture