Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels
Masande Ntshanga’s novel The Reactive (2014) is the first South African novel written by a black male writer to feature the first-person voice of an HIV-positive man, Lindanathi. Following Kgebetli Moele’s The Book of the Dead (2009), which gave the virus itself a voice, The Reactive heralds a sign...
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University of Johannesburg
2022-09-01
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| Series: | The Thinker |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/article/view/1456 |
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| author | Lizzy Attree |
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Masande Ntshanga’s novel The Reactive (2014) is the first South African novel written by a black male writer to feature the first-person
voice of an HIV-positive man, Lindanathi. Following Kgebetli Moele’s The Book of the Dead (2009), which gave the virus itself a voice, The Reactive heralds a significant shift in the portrayal of HIV in South African literature. Eben Venter’s Afrikaans novel Ek Stamel, Ek
Sterwe (1996) which was translated into English by Luke Stubbs as My Beautiful Death (2004), and which has – significantly – received little critical review in English as an HIV narrative, tells the story of a white South African man, Konstant, in the Australian diaspora who
eventually succumbs to AIDS. Both novels complicate ideas of masculinity and can be described as ‘coming of age’ narratives or bildungsromans. Both novels sit historically on the cusp of change, before and after the widespread availability of ARVs. Given their
commonality of subject and narrative perspective, these texts seem ripe for comparison despite their authors’ different backgrounds. The shifts and continuities in the representation of HIV/AIDS found between these two novels, published 18 years apart, seem to disrupt the trajectory of the post-colonial bildungsroman as it is mediated (for the first time?) through the HIVpositive narrator. Reading these two novels together helps us to understand literary patterns, associations and dissociations, which reveal a cultural symbology of HIV/AIDS, part of a wider cultural symbology of illness in South African literature.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-495c1c2be4784906851f88bd72d68b17 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2075-2458 2616-907X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2022-09-01 |
| publisher | University of Johannesburg |
| record_format | Article |
| series | The Thinker |
| spelling | doaj-art-495c1c2be4784906851f88bd72d68b172025-01-28T09:02:07ZengUniversity of JohannesburgThe Thinker2075-24582616-907X2022-09-0192310.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1456Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African NovelsLizzy Attree Masande Ntshanga’s novel The Reactive (2014) is the first South African novel written by a black male writer to feature the first-person voice of an HIV-positive man, Lindanathi. Following Kgebetli Moele’s The Book of the Dead (2009), which gave the virus itself a voice, The Reactive heralds a significant shift in the portrayal of HIV in South African literature. Eben Venter’s Afrikaans novel Ek Stamel, Ek Sterwe (1996) which was translated into English by Luke Stubbs as My Beautiful Death (2004), and which has – significantly – received little critical review in English as an HIV narrative, tells the story of a white South African man, Konstant, in the Australian diaspora who eventually succumbs to AIDS. Both novels complicate ideas of masculinity and can be described as ‘coming of age’ narratives or bildungsromans. Both novels sit historically on the cusp of change, before and after the widespread availability of ARVs. Given their commonality of subject and narrative perspective, these texts seem ripe for comparison despite their authors’ different backgrounds. The shifts and continuities in the representation of HIV/AIDS found between these two novels, published 18 years apart, seem to disrupt the trajectory of the post-colonial bildungsroman as it is mediated (for the first time?) through the HIVpositive narrator. Reading these two novels together helps us to understand literary patterns, associations and dissociations, which reveal a cultural symbology of HIV/AIDS, part of a wider cultural symbology of illness in South African literature. https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/article/view/1456first-person narratorHIV-positiveSouth Africanovel |
| spellingShingle | Lizzy Attree Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels The Thinker first-person narrator HIV-positive South Africa novel |
| title | Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels |
| title_full | Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels |
| title_fullStr | Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels |
| title_full_unstemmed | Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels |
| title_short | Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels |
| title_sort | daring to be different the first person hiv positive narrator in two south african novels |
| topic | first-person narrator HIV-positive South Africa novel |
| url | https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/article/view/1456 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT lizzyattree daringtobedifferentthefirstpersonhivpositivenarratorintwosouthafricannovels |