Nation and gender: Female identity in contemporary South African writing

Contemporary South African fiction reflects the search for a new national identity as well as the current problems the Rainbow Nation is facing. It is striking that in this process of redefinition, South African fiction shows a remarkable preoccupation with the question of gender. This essay tries to elucidate the forms of female identity implied in contemporary writing, concentrating on André Brink's novel The Rights of Desire, Achmat Dangor's Kafka's Curse, Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying, and J M Coetzee's Disgrace: What kind of femininity is suggested in those works? And how are the images of women related to the question of national identity? The paper focuses on three main features of female identity which can be found in the texts: the utopian quality of femininity, the mysteriousness of women, and the relation of women and history.