EXILES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES IN SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURES

Abstract

This thesis attempts to explore the relationship between exile and autobiography, a literary genre, produced in the particular context of South Africa. It seeks to demonstrate that the condition of exile engenders this form of writing which literary theorists and critics have not yet been able to define, nor to set limits to. Through the study of three South African „autobiographical writings‟, namely, Mphahlele‟s Down Second Avenue, Bessie Head‟s A Question of Power and André Brink‟s A Fork in the Road, I will try to examine both the form of exile each writer went through as well as the kind of writing resulting from it. It is important to note, for the sake of analysis, the fact that the three writers, belonging to the rainbow nation, are Black (Mphahlele), Coloured (Head) and White (Brink). The distinction or comparison made between them, far from being discriminatory, aims at shedding light on a reality imposed by Apartheid, a system which affected the works of each of them. How many „exiles‟ they have experienced, and what literature they have produced will be discussed within four chapters. The first chapter deals with a theoretical study of exile in its diverse forms, manifestations and interpretations and its link to autobiography, as a universal and as a South African literary genre. The second chapter introduces Mphahlele‟s Down Second Avenue, as an „autobiographical novel‟, through which the account of his life-story shows and reinforces the idea that exile in his case is primarily racial consequently psychological and cultural. The third chapter studies Head‟s auto fiction A Question of Power. The latter offers an insight into the tormented life of a writer whose exile was triple as she suffered from racial, tribal and gender discrimination. It will be seen how through autobiography, Head like Mphahlele re-inscribes the past and reactivates it so that she recovers an identity. The fourth chapter examines the memoir of André Brink, an Afrikaan writer, witness of three generations of revolted writers both Whites and Non-Whites. His autobiographical oeuvre, A Fork in the Road, can also be considered as a historical document whereby events and psychological experiences are called to reenact powerful memories. His exile was first and foremost cultural, but no less painful and alienating than Mphahlele‟s and Head‟s. Through the scrutiny of the relation between exile and autobiography, this thesis seeks to show that in the depths of Africa, a nation wearing the colours of the rainbow, has become the cradle of extreme sensibilities through time. Facts and fictions will never be enough to recount, record and why not sing with an „I‟, „he‟ or „we‟ the life-stories of human beings wishing to call themselves a nation.