Postcolonial pomosexuality: Queer/alternative fiction afterdisgrace

Queerying examples of contemporary South African short fiction

“…There are stories which address divergent sexualities, written by writers who identify (though differently) as LGBTQIA. With the liberated possibilities of a constitutional democracy, South Africa has seen more short stories which are “sexually explicit”, and more stories that trace “the painful self-acceptance of gay identities” (Stobie, 2009: 320). In her work on queer texts, Cheryl Stobie observes “a cluster of attributes” associated with a queer inclination in fiction, among them “queer sexuality viewed with interior depth”; the “coming-out narrative, the normalization of queer, progressive engagement with gender issues, and technical innovation” (2009: 320).…”

“…With the liberated possibilities of a constitutional democracy, South Africa has seen more short stories which are “sexually explicit”, and more stories that trace “the painful self-acceptance of gay identities” (Stobie, 2009: 320). In her work on queer texts, Cheryl Stobie observes “a cluster of attributes” associated with a queer inclination in fiction, among them “queer sexuality viewed with interior depth”; the “coming-out narrative, the normalization of queer, progressive engagement with gender issues, and technical innovation” (2009: 320). She tallies the number of queer characters and scenarios, but more astutely goes on to propose that even content-based depictions of queerness may serve an important “speculative” purpose, linking past and present with a future in which queerness is not stamped as stigma.…”

“…Or, turning this abruptly aslant: in what sense might straight authors write queer stories? Cheryl Stobie’s preferred phrasing — “authors who are personally invested in queer issues” (2009: 320) — and her examples, imply that such authors are necessarily queer-identifying. But straight short story authors may have more than a passing interest in queer, confounding notions of queer as necessarily attached to an individual’s sexual non-conformity.…”

“…This leads to the consideration: while technical–linguistic innovation is not synonymous with queer-friendly politics — and nor is realism inherently (hetero)normative — does the post-2000 queer South African short story in English also, at times, take unusual forms, aligning an oblique, experimental style with the invitation to queer hospitality? Cheryl Stobie’s use of the slashed “queer/alternative writing” (2009: 320) implies a tentative “yes”, even if the slash is contentious in associating dissimilar categories. Her awkwardly a/bridged phrasing is undeniably useful in signalling potential relation between queer matrices and other unusual forms of aslant writing.…”

“…In contemporary South African fiction, Stobie has found that, “in terms of style, there is a higher degree of experimentation amongst the women authors who raise queer issues than among their male peers” and there is also “a high degree of critical self-reflexivity” (2009: 331). Jane Bennett’s collection Porcupine (2008) is a good example, with its versatile foray across lyrically irreal strategies and graphic realist detail, a combination which carries the writer’s intersecting interests in unsettling language and convention, in depicting queer orientation and also, simultaneously, in queering interrelated race, class, and gender orthodoxies, many of them entailing violence and the exercising of unequal power.…”