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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Re-reading the past: monuments, history and representation in short stories by Ivan Vladislavic and Zoë Wicomb
Author:Kossew, SueISNI
Year:2010
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies (ISSN 1465-3893)
Volume:36
Issue:3
Pages:571-582
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:short stories
monuments
history
About persons:Ivan Vladislavic (1957-)ISNI
Zoë Wicomb (1948-)ISNI
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2010.507542
Abstract:As representations of particular moments in history, monuments provide useful indices for processes of remembering and forgetting that accompany 'regime change'. Their paradoxical representational instability and their exposure to multiple readings and counter-readings over time make monuments fascinating material for literary investigations of the unstable nature of representation itself. Both Ivan Vladislavic and Zoë Wicomb have used the trope of monuments in their short stories, enabling them to explore acts of reading that reveal a spectrum of interpretations, often ironically resistant to the authorized version of history being celebrated. This article argues that, in drawing attention to these particular cultural constructions, both writers are also underscoring the ironies inherent in the inability of cultural forms to 'fix' either the past or the present, particularly in transitional historical moments. Ivan Vladislavic's 'Propaganda by monuments' and 'The WHITES ONLY bench' (1996), and Wicomb's recent 'The one that got away' (2011), are considered together in the present article. Ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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