Lightning and fiction: an engineer reads Phaswane Mpe's 'Brooding Clouds'

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Periodical article

Title:	Lightning and fiction: an engineer reads Phaswane Mpe's 'Brooding Clouds'
Author:	Trengove, Estelle
Year:	2015
Periodical:	Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa (ISSN 2159-9130)
Volume:	27
Issue:	1
Pages:	38-49
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	short stories poetry meteorology popular beliefs
About person:	Phaswane Mpe (1970-2004)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2015.1039341
Abstract:	This article presents an interdisciplinary experiment in which electrical engineering meets literary studies. In the author's work as an engineer and a lightning researcher, she became interested in myths, beliefs and misconceptions regarding lightning in southern Africa, and whether they play a role in people's safety during an electric storm. This took her on a journey into the world of oral narratives, folktale collections, archival sources, interview material, fieldwork conversations and media reports, as well as fictional texts. One of those texts was Phaswane Mpe's collection Brooding Clouds. The article presents an analysis of that text. Bibliogr., note, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]