Reflections on Literary Studies in South Africa

Zakes Mda is not only one of South Africa’s most significant post-apartheid novelists, but has worked in diverse media such as theatre, film, opera, painting and music. His prolific creativity in forms other than the novel needs to be taken into account when evaluating his writings. This article proposes an intermedial analysis of Black Diamond (2009), a novel which has largely been given unfavourable critical attention, and suggests that it needs to be considered as a mixed medial text that is shaped by a cinematic mode of narration. The novel is also re-interpreted in the light of a postcolonially inflected “surface reading,” which makes the pervasive visuality of Mda’s prose visible. Finally, it is argued that texts such as Black Diamond raise questions about the interpretive methodologies and reading practices in English literary studies, pointing to future challenges and opportunities in the discipline.