Post-post? South African Literature A Priori

This article outlines the ambiguous operational logic of South African literature after the Marikana massacre in 2012, while using a framework of historical hauntings and ghostly silences where the utopian and dystopian intertwine. In a context of accelerated change both locally and globally, literary patterns and trends must necessarily reflect changing cultural configurations both inside and outside borders. I trace patterns in South African literary studies after Marikana, revealing the ambiguous operational logic that encompasses the utopian with the dystopian, the personal with the political, silence with vocalization, success with failure, within a cultural framework that Njabulo Ndebele characterized as having dislocation at the heart of its structure of thinking and feeling. This framework is constantly in dialogue with “from what is before,” relating to the historicized term “South African literature a priori” where the specter of the past continues to haunt the present, and where the present is no longer transitioning.