Individualism in the Novels of Nuruddin Farah

The subject conceived as 'individual' is a sustained focus across the novels of Somali writer, Nuruddin Farah. This thesis locates a reading of individualism in Farah's novels in the context of the historical and philosophical development of modern identity in the societies of the North-Atlantic. It relies primarily on the analysis of philosopher, Charles Taylor, who proposes that individualism makes modern identity an historically unprecedented mode of conceiving the person. By individualism, Taylor refers to the inward location of moral sources in orientation around which the self is constituted. Nonindividualist conceptions of the self locate moral horizons external to the subject thereby defined. The novel appears to be the most significant cultural form which mutually constitutes modern subjectivity. This is suggested by the centrality of the Bildungsroman sub-genre which fundamentally determines the form of the novel. Farah's work spans the historical development of the novel from the proto-realism of his first publication, through modernism and postmodernism, returning to the 'neo-realism' of his most recent novel. The representation of the subject in the novel suggests transformations in identity which belie the uniformity of the disengaged, autonomous self which is articulated in the novel as a genre. Tension thus is generated between the social commitment Farah expresses as a writer and the limitations of the form which deny representation to the heteronomous subjectivities who are the objects of Farah's concern. The introduction identifies the centrality of individualism to Farah's project. Chapter 1 explores the historical development of individualism and genealogies of alternative conceptions of self. Chapter 2 addresses the articulation of individualism in the classic Bildungsroman, the sub-genre which defines the novel. Chapter 3 interrogates Farah's use of the 'dissensual' Bildungsroman to escape the contradiction of the classic Bildungsroman. Chapter 4 focuses on how modernism in the novels allows aesthetic resolution of individualist contradiction through fragmentation. Chapter 5 explores the resistance encountered when the novel attempts to represent heteronomy rather than autonomy. Chapter 6 suggests the indispensability of coherent subjectivity to Farah's socially committed stance. Within the philosophical matrix of individualism, the 'performative' or 'stylized' subject is the consequential form of identity

Desert ethics, myths of nature and novel form in the narratives of Ibrahim al-Koni

This broadly comparative essay contrasts environmentalism in the fiction in English translation of the Libyan writer, Ibrahim alKoni, with dominant trends in contemporary environmentalism. An analysis of three of the most ecocritically pertinent of the novels in English translation suggests that the natural world is viewed through the lens of the mythical, encompassing the religious worlds of both Tuareg animism, as well as monotheism represented by Islam and early Christianity. The novels to be considered are The Seven Veils of Seth, Anubis and The Bleeding of the Stone. Unlike environmental approaches which derive from the European Enlightenment of procedural rational disenchantment, human beings in Al-Koni’s work are accorded a place in the sacred order which allows non-parasitic modes of existence within the framework of a sacred law

The road not travelled: Tracking love in Frank Anthony’s the journey: The revolutionary anguish of Comrade B

The Journey (1991) is a virtually unknown “struggle” novel by Frank Anthony (d. 1993), a senior member of the African People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa (APDUSA), who was incarcerated on Robben Island for six years. The novel and its author have been elided from South African history as a racialized literary establishment and the defensiveness of the resistance organization of which he was a member reinforced each other in tacit censorship. Anthony’s novel presents revealing insights into the repression of the personal in the anti-apartheid movement, which reflected the “liquidation” of love in leftist discourse of the period. The importance of love, especially romantic love – the highly volatile emotion which is often boundary-breaking and radically transformative – has been recognized in contemporary post- Marxism and critical race theory. Blindness to the potential of love in dominant struggle politics is reflected in the protagonist of The Journey, whose passion for social justice leads, paradoxically, to repression of the empowerment and emancipation of self(lessness) through other(s), enabled by eros. A final version of this article appears in English in Africa 50.1 (Apr 2023): 73–98, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/eia.v50i1.

Longing for Love: Eros and National Belonging in Three Novels by Rayda Jacobs

The female Muslim descendant of Cape slavery is a key figure in the work of South African writer, Rayda Jacobs. Three of her novels, in particular, seem to track the social and political genealogy of the female Muslim descendant of slaves, namely, Eyes of the Sky (1996), The Slave Book (1998), and Sachs Street (2001). These novels trace, through the subjectivity of the female Muslim slave, the emergence of the South African nation from its origins at the Cape, through the hinterland, to its contemporary borders. The novels foreground the personal relationship of romantic love, which, of all the personal relationships, is the most volatile and dynamic, producing unexpected transformations. Love, which produces a child from the erotic encounter in Eyes of the Sky, and social union through marriage in The Slave Book, is presented as having the potential to transcend racial, class and religious boundaries in the colonial state. We see in the declining apartheid state presented in the third novel, Sachs Street, that the national allegorical potential of eros finally is not fully realised, leading to a reconceptualisation of romantic love in a transnational frame, centred nonetheless in Cape Town, South Africa. As much as these novels are historical, since they are written post-1994 reflecting the contemporary concerns of its author, they present a singular vision of the place of the female Muslim descendant of slaves in the South African nation, where the postcolonial nation is implicitly conceptualised as a white dominated derivative European nation-state

Community Engagement newsletter, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Spring 2014

Dawn to dusk outreach at Rust de Winter / Nyeleti Manganyi -- Mamelodi outreach: a two-way learning experience / Melissa Sussens, Francoisné Nortjé, Jason Meyer, Linka van Heerden, Siposethu Siyotula -- Community outreach in Elandspoort / Abigail Ngoepe -- Community kids learn about conservation issues in a fun and informative manner / Sean Hensman, photos by Kashmika Gurunand, Bernadien Malan and Theuns Laubscher -- When paws meet hands / Fatima Moolla -- A unique zoo experience / Graeme Piketh.Originally published as HTML file, converted to PDF with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Version 9.0.0.News articles with colour photos about the various community engagement projects of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria.ab201

Nuruddin Farah and Pascale Casanova: A pas de deux across the world republic of letters

Nuruddin Farah’s life and work at one and the same time exemplify and highlight contradictions in Pascale Casanova’s The World Republic of Letters, a book that has had major impact in comparative and world literature circuits. As an author who shows in the extreme most of the hallmarks of the dispossessed writer of the periphery, Farah would appear perfectly to illustrate Casanova’s hierarchical, binary, and highly agonistic world literary systems theory, where Euro-America dominates the world, and Paris dominates Euro-America. However, precisely because of his unique position on the literary periphery of the periphery, Farah’s work itself is the practice of Casanova’s theory, carrying within itself the key precepts, especially in its constitutive and conscious transnationalism. In other words, Farah does not derivatively illustrate the theory, but his career and novels preempt through practice the major insights of the theory. But Farah also signposts transformations in Casanova’s world republic of letters in the twenty-first century. Farah’s career, with consecration through prizes and awards increasingly in peripheral countries, suggests a wider polycentrism of influence than allowed in Casanova’s model. The postcolonial aesthetic of teacherliness, furthermore, clearer in the late realism of Farah’s mature work than in that of most other writers, signals a fundamental rewriting rather than renewal of aesthetic modes at Pascale’s literary Greenwich meridian

Community Engagement newsletter, Faculty of Veterinary, Autumn, May 2016

A day in the shoes of a community vet / Marianca Barnard -- In search of the sunrise / Fatima Moolla -- Community engagement committee members 2017 -- Experience at Hluvukani Animal Health Clinic / Isabell HenssNews articles with colour photos about the various community engagement projects of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria.ab201

Community Engagement newsletter, Faculty of Veterinary, Winter, August 2016

VETSCO venturing to World Vet Day / I-jin Maggie Lee and Mayuri Hargovan -- Rust De Winter: a veterinary student’s perspectives / Graeme Piketh -- Little acts of kindness / Fatima Moolla -- Hope for Mamelodi's dogs / Lize-Mari Nel, photographs by Trishantha Govender -- VETSCO takes Stinkwater by the horns / Ashlin Valan ; Jacky Spiby.News articles with colour photos about the various community engagement projects of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria.ab201