Abstract:
This study discusses African identity as portrayed in Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of
Excelsior (2002) and Bessie Head’s Maru (1971). It explores identity and its subcomponents
within the South African context as asserted in these novels. Mda employs
a retrospective communal voice that blends historical accounts with fiction in order to
subvert and satirise apartheid nationalism. Head, on the other hand, constructs a
positive image of feminine identity in the world characterised by tribalism, patriarchal
system and stereotypical subjugation of women. She dismantles established racial and
ethnic prejudice against minority groups and the underprivileged. The study applies a
trilogy of theoretical framework to analyse and interpret selected data: Discourse
Analysis, Text Analysis and Afrocentricity. It further examines a fluidity of identities in
both social and political spheres and demonstrates how suppression of these identities
affects individuals and nation states. It reveals that, as a microcosm of Africa, South
Africa reflects atrocious injustices of the past, carried out in the form of colonisation and
apartheid, bringing about a different kind of identity of the African people. These two
novels take us back to the past so that we can understand the present and
subsequently build Africa’s identity of the future.
KEY CONCEPTS
Afrocentricity; Identity; Discrimination; Miscegenation; Otherness; Hybridity; Animalistic
Dehumanisation.
