Space, Place, and Gendered Violence in South African Writing

Exploring the relationship between space, place, and gendered violence as depicted in a range of South African writing, Gunne examines the social and political conditions of exceptionality during and after apartheid. Writers covered include: Hilda Bernstein, J.M. Coetzee, Achmat Dangor, Ruth First, Nadine Gordimer, and Antjie Krog.

"Redeveloping classic settings of anti-apartheid struggle such as prisons, townships, and trains, Gunne reanimates the very characters who contributed to the still unfolding epic plot of a world-historical 'transition to democracy.' Gunne's readings of narratives of 'space, place, and gendered violence' delineate a new topography of apartheid South Africa even as it bleeds into a 21st century critical arena and controversial post-apartheid demographics." - Barbara Harlow, Professor of English, University of Texas at Austin, USA

"Gunne's important book examines a wide range of texts written during and after apartheid to show the central role violence plays in the production and circulation of gender and sexuality in South Africa. Insofar as her concept of 'gendered violence' includes multiple forms of violence that include but are not limited to sexual violence, Gunne offers a powerful response to the ghettoization of rape in culture. Her contribution is groundbreaking because, while highlighting how gendered violence is structurally part of the social fabric, she never reduces social experience or its analysis to a dimension of violence." - Carine M. Mardorossian, Associate Professor of English, University of Buffalo, SUNY, USA

Sorcha Gunne is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Lincoln, UK.