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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:We who belong to this landscape: Antjie Krog and the politics of space
Author:Pieterse, AnnelISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa
Volume:19
Issue:2
Pages:163-186
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:prose
landscape
space
About person:Anna Elizabeth Krog (1952-)ISNI
Abstract:Because the intersection of space and ideology is so prominent in South Africa, the appropriation of physical space becomes a crucial aspect of ideological struggle. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the way landscapes are aestheticized. In a situation where an alienation from the landscape has occurred, a re-identification is needed. When spaces are reoccupied, translated, and invested with new significance, it is never simply a literal appropriation of space. Instead, the effort of such a reappropriation of physical space impacts in complex ways on the way identity is negotiated and valued. This paper argues that Antjie Krog's English prose works, 'Country of my skull' (1998), and 'A change of tongue' (2003), participate in and comment on this reappraisal and refraction of South African subjectivities precisely through their attentiveness to the contested nature of material space. Moreover, the way these memoirs engage space relates directly to the kinds of anxieties generated around the factuality/fictionality of Krog's texts that have dominated criticism of her work, especially in the last year or so. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract]
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