Hope and disillusionment: a post-colonial critique of selected South African and Zimbabwean short stories

This study investigates short stories published in South Africa and in Zimbabwe before the turn of the twenty-first century. The short story as a genre provides a more accessible and shorter means of viewing literary trends after the official end of the hostilities of apartheid and colonialism. Because of their brevity and specific focus, these short stories from many voices allow a glimpse of different arenas affecting contemporary reality. Post-independence stories reveal that in the process of navigating or directing hope after independence, people are sometimes left bereft as disenchantment with politics sets in, leaving people to search for hope in areas of their everyday lives such as marriage, birth and friendship. But because their lives are also fraught with conflict, hate and betrayal, hope may remain uncertain and prospects frightening. Chapter One embarks on a brief historical and political background of South Africa and Zimbabwe. This chapter also conceptualizes the issues of hope and disillusionment in the South African and Zimbabwean socio-historical contexts. Chapters Two and Three analyze selected stories from South Africa and Zimbabwe, respectively, focusing on issues with which the writers are preoccupied, especially how they explore hope and disillusionment. The analyses of the stories in these two chapters are structured chronologically depicting events in the stories. Thus the study creates its own narrative of South African and Zimbabwean life towards the new millennium. These two chapters discuss how meanings, significances and ramifications of the post-colonial community are negotiated and re-negotiated in selected stories, highlighting the challenges and engagements with hope and disillusionment dramatized in short prose fiction. Chapter Four will undertake to conclude with comparisons of the selected stories, discussing the implications of the study for South African and Zimbabwean contemporary societies at the turn of the twenty-first century. Granted, it is always difficult to generalize about a society from such highly individual, personal stories. But my study suggests that at the turn of the twenty-first century in South Africa, disillusionment is beginning to displace the heady expectation many felt at the 1994 election. And perhaps even more unlikely, given the current crisis, Zimbabwean stories from recent years show people hopefully waiting for the new millennium, a dawning of new, unpredictable possibilities