Pain and Pleasure

Verena Jain-Warden

Pain and Pleasure. The Represenation of Bodies and Emotions in Contemporary South African Novels

ISBN 978-3-86821-712-4, 226 pp., paperback, € 27,50 (2017)

(Reflections - Literatures in English outside Britain and the USA, Vol. 25)

Endorsers of the "rainbow nation" often use pain and pleasure to contrast the painful apartheid past with the pleasurable aspects of the present. This study examines the complex ways in which contemporary South African novels challenge this dichotomy and highlight the interdependencies, overlaps, and crossings between pain and pleasure. In doing so, the book argues, literary texts emphasise the continuities and connections between apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. As the first extensive study on emotions and their literary representation in a South African context, this book provides a fresh perspective on the intricacies and contradictions of post-apartheid South African culture and on the multiple ways in which human beings relate to each other and in which communities are built. The complex theoretical framework on bodies, emotions, and their representation is outlined and applied to a broad variety of South African novels. The study takes up current issues in research on South Africa, such as the increasing focus on gender and sexuality, and addresses the need to develop a new epistemology for understanding contemporary South Africa.

Preview / Table of Contents (pdf)