The Content of the Form and other Textual Politics. Configurations of Nationhood and Citizenship in Disgrace and Agaat

This text seeks to rethink the relationship between literature and citizenship or, more generally, identity. It does so by analysing two recent South-African novels i.e. J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999) and Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat (2006). Both Disgrace and Agaat are examples of how the singularity of great literary works needs an interdisciplinary approach that does justice to the way in which a novel is part of, and simultaneously co-constructs, the discourses on history, identity and citizenship