Créopolis: Post-Apartheid and Creative-Critical Literary Testimony
Lead Research Organisation:
Birkbeck, University of London
Department Name: English, Theatre and Creative Writing
Abstract
South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission created, for André Brink, a 'spectrum of possibilities'
for writing about Apartheid's on-going legacy (1998). What possibilities are there for Indian-South-Africans in diaspora, writing three decades after Apartheid? My practice-led PhD will produce a novel -
Créopolis - to explore Post-Apartheid traumas across different generations and scales, from world-historical to personal. Créopolis focuses on a tri-generational London-based family and juxtaposes older
generation's memories of Apartheid with challenges faced by a graduate student in the wake of Brexit. It
captures unique transnational experiences of a twice-displaced racialised community. I use
interdisciplinary research, allowing critical discourse to inform creative narrative. I work with: Apartheid-era memoirs, field interviews, trauma and affect theories, phenomenologies of touch (haptics), human
rights, race politics, and archival records of Indian activists in South Africa.
for writing about Apartheid's on-going legacy (1998). What possibilities are there for Indian-South-Africans in diaspora, writing three decades after Apartheid? My practice-led PhD will produce a novel -
Créopolis - to explore Post-Apartheid traumas across different generations and scales, from world-historical to personal. Créopolis focuses on a tri-generational London-based family and juxtaposes older
generation's memories of Apartheid with challenges faced by a graduate student in the wake of Brexit. It
captures unique transnational experiences of a twice-displaced racialised community. I use
interdisciplinary research, allowing critical discourse to inform creative narrative. I work with: Apartheid-era memoirs, field interviews, trauma and affect theories, phenomenologies of touch (haptics), human
rights, race politics, and archival records of Indian activists in South Africa.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Azad Sharma (Student) |