The Present in Pain

“Temporal Poiesis” in Mongane Wally Serote's To Every Birth Its Blood (1981)

Bibliographic Data

ID20156529
AuthorsMichela Borzaga (0000-0002-9316-0737, University of Vienna, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume31
Issue1
Pages64-81
Publication date2015-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387
PublisherUnisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA)
DOI10.1080/02564718.2015.1024408
OpenAlexW2018968028
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited5

While the phenomenon of apartheid has been extensively explored in terms of topographic designs and spatial separateness, its multiple and complex “temporal geographies’’ still need to be explored and assessed. This article seeks to investigate Mongane Wally Serote's To Every Birth Its Blood (1981) from a temporal perspective – more specifically, how lived time is experienced by the subject under apartheid. Through a close textual analysis of the urban setting and of the characters’ rich and nuanced psyche as well as their physical and affective lives, this article shows how, at the basis of Serote's novel, there lies an intricate, dynamic and multi-layered phenomenology of time. Serote's model is one that sees different temporal dimensions at work simultaneously: external time, inner psychic time, and the temporal complication brought about by the apartheid regime (with its unpredictable, pervasive and terrorising methods). This complex temporal tapestry unfolds while being sustained and contained by Serote's own temporal vision, which is always future-oriented; it is a vision of hope, of individual and communal renewal

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Phenomenon · Psyche · Psychic · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Visual arts · History · Medicine · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Psychology · South African History and Culture

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access