Re/sisters: South African Women's literature

This dissertation focuses on female, black, South African authors. In analyzing their works, I formulate a redefinition of "resistance literature" as well as provide practical criticism on a body of work that is underrepresented in literary study. This particular community of writers has experienced the double marginalization of sexism and racism in a political landscape that has changed dramatically over the period of their writing.;This project argues that the category of "resistance literature," repeatedly invoked by critics of apartheid-era literature (Harlow 1987; DeShazer 1994; Gready 2003), has never been adequately theorized and defined. While apartheid provided a clear "struggle" to be reflected and promoted in literature, the post-apartheid sphere offers a changing view of how literature resists. Current issues are highly gendered, and emerging resistance writers are women who challenge the on-going sexism of South African society as it intersects with issues of race, class, and sexuality. Each chapter concludes that solidarity, both across races within South Africa and between South African women and transnational feminist movements, enables current race and gender-based resistance movements. Thus women must become "re/sisters" in order to become "resisters.";My argument is that black women writers from South Africa reflect and enact resistance against systemic sexism and racism by means of representing the experiences of their ordinary lives, and that they use those representations to forge collectivities with others. There has been intense debate about whether literature that is overtly political can continue to be relevant after political change. After the end of apartheid, what might it mean to resist? This project engages with postcolonial, gender, and resistance theory to produce speculations on the possibilities for defining resistance literature and postulating how it works, what its effects may be, and why it matters.