Neo-Fascisme, norme, literatuur: Oor Pieter Stoffberg se Die hart van ’n bond

Abstract

In this article it is argued that Pieter Stoffberg's collection of stories, Die hart van ’n hond, forces the reader to constitute racist frames in order to interpret. Furthermore the author proposes that Kristeva's formalisation of the 'negation of negation', developed in The Revolution of Poetic Language, can theorise the textual process in these stories as a transgression in which the taboo on political rightist conservatism in a "New South Africa' is broken. To produce this transgression, the text places the reader in the position of the other, a position in which normative decision-taking is precluded. This itself could, however, constitute an ethical moment. On the basis of the Neo-Fascist aspects of Die hart van ’n hond, the article proposes a re-introduction of the ethical in literary’ discourse and critically comments on Afrikaans literary culture in this respect.