Getting Away with Diaspora: Scotland and South Africa in Zoë Wicomb’s The One that Got Away
Abstract
My article examines the diasporic implications in the fictional works of Zoë Wicomb, who was born in South Africa and migrated to Scotland during apartheid. The ideas of ‘belonging’ to her motherland and ‘rooting’ in her country of adoption play a crucial role in her narrative revealing the ideological fabrication of concepts such as ‘nation’ and ‘home’. I focus in particular on Wicomb’s second collection of short stories, The One that Got Away (2008), set both in South Africa and Scotland.
Bibliografia
Coetzee, Carli. 2010. The One That Got Away: Zoë Wicomb in the Archives. Journal of Southern African Studies, 36, 3: 559-569.
Driver, Dorothy. 2010. The Struggle over the Sign: Writing and History in Zoë Wicomb’s Art. Journal of Southern African Studies, 36, 3: 523-542.
Filling, Brian and Susan Stuart eds. 1991. The End of a Regime? An Anthology. Scottish-South African Writing Against Apartheid. Glasgow: Aberdeen UP.
Griem, Julika. 2011. ‘The trick lies in repetitions’: the Politics of Genre in Zoë Wicomb’s The One That Got Away. Safundi. Journal of South African and American Studies, 12, 3-4: 289-406.
McCann, Fiona. 2010. Revisiting the Past: Memory and Identity in Elleke Boehmer’s
Bloodlines and Zoë Wicomb’s David’s Story and Playing in the Light. Jaspar K. Singh & Rajendra Chetty eds. Trauma, Resistance, Reconstruction in Post-1994 South African Writing. New York: Peter Lang, 27-40.
Richter, Virginia. 2011. Zoë Wicomb’s Ghosts: Uncanny Translocations in David’s Story and The One That Got Away. Safundi. Journal of South African and American Studies, 12, 3-4: 373- 388.
Wicomb. Zoë. 1987. You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town. London: Virago.
Wicomb. Zoë. 2000. David’s Story. Cape Town: Kwela Books.
Wicomb. Zoë. 2004. Setting, Intertextuality and the Resurrection of the Postcolonial Author. Alessandra Contenti, Maria Paola Guarducci & Paola Splendore eds. Step Across This Line: come si interroga il testo postcoloniale. Venezia: Cafoscarina, 13-23.
Wicomb. Zoë. 2006. Playing in the Light. London-New York: The New Press. Wicomb. Zoë. 2008. The One That Got Away. Roggebaai: Umuzi.
Wicomb. Zoë. 2014. October. London-New York: The New Press.
Photographs
Figure 1 – Doulton Fountain,Glasgow by Jacqueline Banerjee http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/fountains/3.html [accessed on 31 July, 2015]
Figure 2 - Doulton Fountain (detail), Glasgow by Fergus Murray (courtesy of the author).