Memory, Memorialization, and the Transformation of Johannesburg: Ivan Vladislavić’s Propaganda byMonuments and The Restless Supermarket

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

MFS: Modern Fiction Studies

Volume

53.1

Publication Date

2007

First Page

70

Last Page

96

Abstract

In three short stories—“Propaganda by Monuments,” “The WHITES ONLY Bench,” and “Courage”—and in his novel The Restless Supermarket, Ivan Vladislavic dramatizes the problems facing South African culture in its attempts to memorialize a violent and traumatic past. These texts suggest a skepticism about the capacity of monuments and memorials to convey an authentic past. Restless Supermarket in particular reveals the complex ways in which memory and consciousness are mapped onto space and place in the aftermath of apartheid, and explores the spatio-temporal implications of postmodern “urban palimpsests” for the inscription of memory and identity.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS