Story-telling and the telling of stories

Abstract

S.N. Nkadimeng's Mmantšhaotlogele and Mpepele's Medupiya Megokgo are two collections of short stories which appeared during the eighties. The merit of these stories is not widely recognized, because their authors do not strictly adhere to the current definition of the short story widely to be found in every handbook on story-telling. What Nkadimeng and Mpepele actually do, is that they carry the experiment—which has its origin in the innovative art of story-telling—to the extreme, culminating in the oeuvre of Matsepe. They are not interested in the story, of importance to them is the telling of the story. Therefore their stories are structurally not bound to definition, form, and tradition—theirs are a tour de forcein style.