Vivere con la razza nei racconti di Elleke Boehmer

Abstract

This essay introduces Sharmilla, and Other Portraits as a form of Hi/Storytelling, namely, as a narrative both of the history of South Africa in the span from 1989 to 2010, and of the individual stories of the characters over the same period. The portraits are perceived and described through the lens of race - however rarely mentioned as such and without it emerging as a central issue. In this essay, a selection of short stories is used to suggest a reading paradigm of today’s European and global condition, when vast movements of people are contrasted by policies of bordering, marginalisation, and exclusion. The aesthetic and literary dimensions of Sharmilla are examined by considering the creative and political use of words in order to lay bare the effects of the discourse about race on the readers. These effects generate forms of empathy with the characters and interrogate common stereotypes of difference. In this way, the literary text shows its pedagogical and ethical value which relies on the methodological approaches of Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies.

DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-135

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