TY - JOUR
T1 - Multiphrenic Identities and Cultural Theory in Post-Apartheid Literary Adaptations
T2 - Reflections on Ramadan Suleiman’s Film Version of Njabulo Simakhale Ndebele’s Fools
AU - Mututa, Addamms
AU - Tomaselli, Keyan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Editorial Board, Current Writing.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - In both apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, literary texts have been important sites of cultural enquiry. They both historicise culture and allow new theoretical frames. However, they are also sites of fragmented, overpopulated, multisensorial memories and the difficulties of their articulation. This article focuses on Ramadan Suleiman’s, Fools, an adaptation of Njabulo Ndebele’s novel by the same title, as an important site for examining cultural theory occurring at the juncture of apartheid literature and post-apartheid literary criticism. We argue that while the film is a figurative cartographical sketch of the apartheid ‘world’ narrated in the novel, its protagonist functions as an avenue of ‘discharging’ specific ideas of identity crisis in the post-apartheid cultural world. It angles towards multiphrenia as a productive frame to theorise the protagonist’s jumbled identity, drawing from the existing critique of both the text and the film. We conclude that, through this overwhelmed identity, Fools offers a sui generis paradigm of new possibilities in post-apartheid cultural criticism that is usable in both literary and film criticism.
AB - In both apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, literary texts have been important sites of cultural enquiry. They both historicise culture and allow new theoretical frames. However, they are also sites of fragmented, overpopulated, multisensorial memories and the difficulties of their articulation. This article focuses on Ramadan Suleiman’s, Fools, an adaptation of Njabulo Ndebele’s novel by the same title, as an important site for examining cultural theory occurring at the juncture of apartheid literature and post-apartheid literary criticism. We argue that while the film is a figurative cartographical sketch of the apartheid ‘world’ narrated in the novel, its protagonist functions as an avenue of ‘discharging’ specific ideas of identity crisis in the post-apartheid cultural world. It angles towards multiphrenia as a productive frame to theorise the protagonist’s jumbled identity, drawing from the existing critique of both the text and the film. We conclude that, through this overwhelmed identity, Fools offers a sui generis paradigm of new possibilities in post-apartheid cultural criticism that is usable in both literary and film criticism.
KW - Fools
KW - Njabulo Ndebele
KW - Ramadan Suleiman
KW - South African cinema
KW - multiphrenia
KW - post-apartheid culture
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85197418861&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1013929X.2024.2325770
DO - 10.1080/1013929X.2024.2325770
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85197418861
SN - 1013-929X
VL - 36
SP - 56
EP - 68
JO - Current Writing
JF - Current Writing
IS - 1
ER -