TITLE

Citizen Other: Islamic Indianness and the Implosion of Racial Harmony in Postapartheid South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Rastogi, Pallavi
PUB. DATE
January 2008
SOURCE
Research in African Literatures;Spring2008, Vol. 39 Issue 1, p107
SOURCE TYPE
Academic Journal
DOC. TYPE
Essay
ABSTRACT
This essay explores the implosion of racial and religious harmony in the postapartheid fiction of South African Indian writer Ahmed Essop, who problematizes the accommodation of the Indo-Islamic community within the contours of a secular nation in The King of Hearts (1997) and The Third Prophecy (2004). The minority disaffection described in these texts raises important questions about citizenship in the "new" South Africa. Indian-Muslim alienation from the national norm casts doubts on democratic South Africa's success in the projects of community building, inter-cultural reconciliation, and racial healing thus compelling us to question its very legitimacy as a truly postcolonial nation.
ACCESSION #
28628440

Tags: ESSAYS;  ESSOP, Ahmed;  THIRD Prophecy, The (Book);  KING of Hearts & Other Stories, The (Book);  SOUTH African literature;  POSTCOLONIALISM;  POST-apartheid era

 

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