Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • Chapter 2 - Empowerment

  • Christopher Warnes, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Writing, Politics and Change in South Africa after Apartheid
    Published online:
    08 August 2023
    Print publication:
    08 June 2023, pp 62-91

  • Summary

    The second chapter continues the examination of class aspiration, but this time from the point of view of those entering the middle and upper-middle classes. Here government policies of affirmative action and Black Economic Empowerment have borne fruit for some. But the benefits of these policies come with strings attached, for the workplace is often experienced as hostile and unwelcoming. Life in the suburbs, even for the nouveau riche, can be alienating. The key texts studied in this chapter, aided by a wealth of ethnography in this area, are popular romances (Sapphire Press, Nollybooks) and ‘chick lit’ (Zukiswa Wanner, Cynthia Jele) aimed at black female South Africans. These texts, it is argued, serve a self-help function, negotiating shifting structures of identity along with changes in lifestyle, affiliation, values and meanings.

Aboriginal Writers and Popular Fiction

Aboriginal Writers and Popular Fiction
  • The Literature of Anita Heiss
  • Fiannuala Morgan
  • Published online:
    14 January 2021
    Print publication:
    11 February 2021
  • Wiradjuri woman, Anita Heiss, is arguably one of the first Aboriginal Australian authors of popular fiction. A focus on the political characterises her chick lit; and her identity as an author is both supplemented and complemented by her roles as an academic, activist and public intellectual. Heiss has discussed genre as a means of targeting audiences that may be less engaged with Indigenous affairs, and positions her novels as educative but not didactic. Her readership is constituted by committed readers of romance and chick lit as well as politically engaged readers that are attracted to Heiss' dual authorial persona; and, both groups bring radically distinct expectations to bear on these texts. Through analysis of online reviews and surveys conducted with users of the book reviewing website Goodreads, I complicate the understanding of genre as a cogent interpretative frame, and deploy this discussion to explore the social significance of Heiss' literature.