Masters Degrees (English)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (English) by Author "Charles, Tembi"

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    The Zimbabwean crisis : locations of writing and the literary representation of Zimbabwe’s ‘lost decade.’
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12) Charles, Tembi; Musila, Grace A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines literary representations of the Zimbabwean crisis to ascertain how geographic, race and gender locations of writing influence the interpretation of the internal and external displacement of citizens, resulting from the government’s 2000 fast-track land redistribution programme. Because the impact of the crisis on citizens depended on location, this study is framed around three perspectives. The first section, which analyses We Need New Names (2013) by NoViolet Bulawayo and Harare North (2009) by Brian Chikwava, explores the displacement of citizens to the diaspora. Through an examination of literary devices employed by both authors, the study engages with the representation of Zimbabwean migrants’ experiences in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Highway Queen (2010) by Virginia Phiri and The Hairdresser of Harare (2010) by Tendai Huchu are analysed in the second section of the study, where the socio-cultural impact of the crisis on gender, particularly on the performance of masculinity, is explored. The last section looks at post-2000 white identity as portrayed in One Hundred and Four Horses: A Memoir of Farm and Family, Africa and Exile (2013) by Mandy Retzlaff and Absent: The English Teacher (2009) by John Eppel. Here, the thesis reflects on the two authors’ framing of the loss of home, identity and belonging experienced by white Zimbabweans in the aftermath of land reform.