Stobie, C. 2012. “Dystopian dreams from South Africa: Lauren Beukes’ Moxyland and Zoo City”

Introduction

Utopia, dystopia, eutopia

The national mood in post-apartheid South Africa, and dystopian cultural
production

Zoo City

a polarised discourse of race is now distressingly prevalent in South Africa

post-apartheid euphoria has been followed by disenchantment and
melancholy

Writers can revitalise the
power of language

segregation, criminality, violence, oppression and
human rights violations which characterised the past and persists into the future

image

representations of dystopias, imaginary spaces in
literature which are clearly worse than contemporary society

dystopias
allow for some hope, or ‘social dreaming’ within the reader

social dreaming within
a dystopian text

progressively more disaffected and
alienated, leading to a counter-narrative of politicised resistance

no closure, but offer certain
possibilities

insights of feminism,
postmodernism and postcolonialism, and offer a range of voices

=resistance

postcolonial dystopia = critical dystopia

critique universalising power systems, such as patriarchy

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Hope, and the mood shifted to a post-apartheid mindset

cultural relativism was under scrutiny

post-apartheid utopian fiction

engages with issues of national and cultural identity obliquely

optimistic mood, relief

Thabo Mbeki’s presidency

public protest and paranoia

stemming from high crime and unemployment rates, lack of service delivery, a power

crisis, xenophobic attacks

image

corruption, racketeering, cronyism and sexual
intemperateness

critical dystopianism in South African cultural products

national mood
slump of the Mbeki and Zuma eras

Dystopian

critical dystopia

criticise socio-political systems from the perspective of disaffected outsiders

‘militant pessimism', ‘focused anger’ and ‘radical hope’

image

offer no refuge

historically significant South African city, Johannesburg, black gold miners

‘muti noir' novel

As a result of a serious crime, each of these individuals has been mystically bonded with an
animal

extreme contrasts in economic circumstances

aphorism encapsulates concepts of risk, money, crime, sexual
transgression and punishment

centre of xenophobic
attacks

Most of them are marked as criminals by their animal
familiars

‘Murderers, rapists, junkies. Scum of the earth

undertow

‘Murderers, rapists, junkies. Scum of the earth

possibility of hope and redemption

Chronotype

2010

‘zoo’ is conferred with a psychic gift which brings redmption

first-person present-tense narration

multiplicity of perspectives

brings noir into dialogue
with postcolonialism and feminism

5 features of a noir novel oneiric, strange, erotic,
ambivalent, and cruel

characters are flawed and alienated, and are frequently shown as engaged in
love affairs

flashbacks

pessimism, doomed fate

Zoo City, the text’s nickname for Hillbrow

Sangoma, past, sins, muti, traditional Zulu culture