Racial reconciliation and healing in R. Kaschula's Emthonjeni

Abstract

This article depicts the process of post-apartheid cultural creolization in Russell Kaschula's Xhosa novel, Emthonjeni (2006) (translated into English by its author as Take me to the river). The objective is to demonstrate that Emthonjeni can be read as a creolization of South Africa's past essentialized cultural identities, apparently to reduce their dominance and power in creating national harmonization. In as far as the novel deals with everyday experiences of post-apartheid South Africa, it mirrors the events of its times.