Writing Crime in the New South Africa
Negotiating Threat in the Novels of Deon Meyer and Margie Orford
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4604425 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher Warnes (University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 981-991 |
| Publication date | 2012-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057070.2012.742364 |
| OpenAlex | W2170221673 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 20 |
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-apartheid themes, and a politics that is, for the most part, liberal in nature. There is a striking correlation to be drawn between the proposals of South African criminologists and what contemporary crime novelists themselves explore in their fictions. Specifically, both return to the figure of the detective as an antidote to disorder, violence, and uncertainty. This essay interprets the meaning of the post-apartheid crime fiction phenomenon in terms of the novels' capacity to negotiate threat, and to profit from doing so
Art · Criminology · Criticism · Epistemology · Literature · Negotiation · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · South African History and Culture
South African Crime and Detective Fiction in English
Reframing the Nation-State
Women and Crime in Post-Transitional South African Crime Fiction
Food, Masculinity and Gender-based Violence in Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder (2015)
Mapping Identities in Lauren Beukes’s (Re)Imagined Cities
Sisters in crime
Writing the violated body
The production and reception of Deon Meyer’s works
The protean New South Africa in Deon Meyer’s Heart of the hunter
From the Subject of Evil to the Evil Subject
Whose Story Is Written on Her Dead Body? Writing Gender Justice and Transformation by Re-writing Female Victims in South African Crime Thrillers
Crime Fiction, South Africa
Reading Crime through a Gender Lens
Whose ‘Lost Ground’? Facets of Outsiderhood
Female killers and gender politics in contemporary South African crime fiction
Translated from the dead”
Crossing genre boundaries
South African crime fiction
The advent of a genre
Off-colour? Mike Nicol's Neo-noir 'Revenge Trilogy' and the Post-apartheidFemme Fatale
| Citations per year | 1.54 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2021 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |