This paper discusses several aspects of a /Xam Bushman story in which a man brings home a lion cub and insists that it is a dog. The paper seeks to demonstrate that the text is capable of eliciting a range of important critical questions. It argues that the call to exegesis is inherent in most forms of literature, including those that are often treated as folklore or mythology. The paper suggests that there are several aspects of the story that accord with current critical concerns. It concentrates on just two of these: the tension between character and identity in the text and the different modes of knowledge that are present in it. The paper does not attempt to provide an exhaustive or authoritative analysis of the story. Instead it contends that the interpretative possibilities in /Xam literature are more extensive than some of the ways in which it is read would suggest.
Several recent novels in English by Indian and South African authors explore the theme of violent political resistance to the entrenched injustices of the hierarchical Indian social order and South Africa's institutionalised system of racial and economic domination, respectively.
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