TRANSITIONS OF MEANING: LIFE, DEATH, AND IDENTITY IN ZAKES MDA‘’S WAYS OF DYINg

Abstract

The present work considers Mda’s Ways of Dying(1995) as a piece of transitional literature set in South Africa in the early 1990s. Themes discussed include representation and meaning of life and death in the novel, the connections to carnivalesque performance and culture, the political context of the novel, and issues of identity performance in relation to race and ethnicity. The theoretical framework for this work is based on post-colonial theory, Boehmer’s theory of terror, and the theories of Butler and others regarding the performativity of race, gender and other elements of identity.