Terror Terroir
Building Disruptive Possibilities in Ivan Vladislavić’s The Folly
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20155920 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wamuwi Mbao (0000-0002-4026-7872, Stellenbosch University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 9-26 |
| Publication date | 2020-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387 |
| Publisher | Unisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02564718.2020.1822599 |
| OpenAlex | W3110130193 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 14 |
Ivan Vladislavić’s 1993 novel The Folly has received less critical attention than his other writing. The novel was republished recently and, in this article, I read The Folly as a text that, from the vantage point of 1993, stages white South African suburbia as a site fraught with tensions. In the novel, the appearance of a drifter on a terrain vague dissolves the certainties of a suburban neighbourhood, creating an inchoate but gnawing sense of threat that finds expression in the Malgas family. I argue that white suburbs are under-examined cultural sites whose mundanity disguises their disci- plining principles. I draw on experiences of inhabiting ‘white space’ as a Black person to read Vladislavić’s novel as parodying white unease towards spaces that disrupt the taut or smoothed surfaces of suburbia. This unease is reflected most visibly in the post-apartheid evolution of such suburbs into lifestyle clusters, security estates and other configurations of life that are arranged around the alleviation of white middle- class anxieties
Aesthetics · Art · Linguistics · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · South African History and Culture
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,04 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2003 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |