Post-apartheid Speculative Fiction and the South African City

This thesis examines the role that speculative fiction plays in imagining the city spaces of the future. Considering the rapid pace of change that has marked post-apartheid South Africa as an impetus for emerging literary traditions within contemporary South African speculative fiction, the argument begins by sketching the connections between South Africa's transition to democracy and the emerging speculative texts which mark this period. Positioning speculative fiction as an umbrella term that incorporates a wide selection of generic traditions, the thesis engages with dystopian impulses, science fiction, magical realism and apocalyptic rhetoric. Through theoretical explication, close reading, and textual comparison, the argument initiates a dialogue between genre theory and urban theory as a means of (re)imagining and (re)mapping the city spaces of post-apartheid Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Grantor

Department of English Language and Literature

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Roux, Rowan

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Ouma, Christopher
• Garuba, Harry

• English

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33005

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/33005