The Xhosa population were to slaughter their cattle and burn their crops to see the prophecy fulfilled: the ancestors were expected to rise from the dead, to bring with them new, uncontaminated corn and cattle, and to drive the colonial usurper into the sea. The story of Nongqawuse – a young Xhosa prophetess who in 1856 claimed to be the bearer of a message from the ancestors – was told and re-told orally in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, throughout the nineteenth and the twenti-eth centuries. Concurrently veiling and revealing paradoxes inherent in South Africa’s dominant racial discourses from within, Serote’s novel demonstrates that enforcing colorblindness is an act of epistemic violence: not even at the diegetic level is nonracialism achievable. Revelations portrays nonracialism and reconciliation as necessary and inevitable, yet shows that the discourses are in conflict with demands for equality and justice. In the process, it illustrates that grappling with colorblindness challenges pervasive understandings of nonracialism, reconciliation, and post-1994 literature. As it questions the shift away from a concern with institutional racism and white supremacy that is evident in much contemporary South African criticism, the essay contends that post-apartheid literature is not only racially marked, but also continues to produce knowledge on racial inequality, racial ideology, and resistance. Urn:oclc:877235564 Republisher_date 20170909112141 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 256 Scandate 20170908140744 Scanner Scanningcenter hongkong Tts_version v1.Offering a reading of Mongane Wally Serote’s Revelations (2010) alongside other recent novels by black South African writers, this essay answers calls for more careful analyses of the roles that race plays within post-apartheid literature and culture. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 17:53:49.783393 Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA1156621 City New York, NY Donor
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