DeraciNationReading the Borderlands in the Fiction of Zoë Wicomb

Resumen

This dissertation analyzes the fiction of South African author Zoë Wicomb (1948- ) through her two collections of short stories: You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town (1987) and The One that Got Away (2008) and two novels: David’s Story (2000) and Playing in the Light (2006). Using an interdisciplinary approach, the concept of deraciNation, which is the uprooting and discrimination of peoples as a way to uphold the notion of Nation, and an adaptation of Gloria Anzaldúa’s borderland theory in an investigation of the coloured community in its construction as an intermediary group between black and white and its locations in the margins of society, this dissertation investigates how discrimination has not only played a role in the construction and representation of coloured identities, but also how it was adopted and incorporated within the community. Wicomb calls attention to oppression in both external and internal forms, exemplifying the failures of the struggle against apartheid and the self-contradictions that can also be violent. Specifically, this dissertation analyzes the spaces of home, neighborhood and nation, which were locations of deracination through external forces of imperialism and colonialism. Moreover, it examines oppression, which has led to these spaces being gendered and racialized, has persisted in coloured identities in post-apartheid South Africa and transnationally into Europe, two areas in which Wicomb’s fictional writings take place as sites of both home and displacement. Furthermore, this dissertation scrutinizes the notion of truth, through an examination of violence, memory and his/herstories as a way of bringing lesser-known stories to the light.