Bosman scholars tend either to have focused on the humour and entertainment value of his works or to have leaned towards appreciation for the satirical quality of his writing and the serious political commentary that accompanies and underpins it. Building on these insights, the present study investigates Bosman’s preoccupation with South Africa’s politics in order to determine whether he could be classified a ‘proto-postcolonial author’. It discusses key features of postcolonial theory and writing and elucidates the term ‘proto-postcolonial’. It then analyses selected texts in terms of their political themes – five short stories from the collections Ramoutsa Road (1987), Unto Dust (1991) and the novel Willemsdorp (written in 1951, first published in 1977). The focus is on Bosman’s form of subtle protest against contemporary inequalities and injustices through his use of satire and techniques such as parody, irony and other linguistic and stylistic devices. Political themes that emerge from this analysis – including the detrimental effects of colonisation, racism, displacement, subjugation, repression and hybridity – are echoed and developed further in discussion of other, subsequent postcolonial writing. This study, therefore, reveals Bosman as a precursor of this later important body of literature and as a writer ahead of his times who has earned his place as a ‘proto-postcolonial’ author.
Although the political angle in Bosman’s writings as expressed in his language style are recognized, the prison writing as featured in his two late novels, Cold Stone Jug (1949) and Willemsdorp (written in 1951, first published posthumously in censored form in 1977 and in full in 1998), have received less scholarly attention, especially in terms of his political intent. The present study explores his preoccupation in these works with the brutality of the prison system and the power of the apartheid state. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975/1995) was employed as a useful theoretical lens in examining Bosman’s critique of the prison system in South Africa and the abuse of power within it. An analysis of the details of police brutality and abuse of power in the censored and uncensored published versions of Willemsdorp has also been included, highlighting the applicability of Foucault’s theorisation on discipline and punishment in the penal system to Bosman’s texts. This study brings to the fore Bosman’s critique of the state, its officials, the unjust practices and the political intention behind his prison writing.
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