Tatamkhulu Afrika: The Testing Of Masculinity

The life story of Tatamkhulu Afrika (1920-2002) is one of the most extraordinary—varied and perilous—of any African writer. It is no cause for surprise that his poetry and fiction so persistently explore conditions of exclusion, marginalization, and the traumatic negotiation of identity. The present paper takes Afrika's fiction as a whole and a selection from his poetry and focuses on his examination of the conditions cited above and, in particular, of circumstances in which his protagonists are subjected to a testing of their notions of masculinity. Afrika's approach to signifiers of masculinity is problematized through an analysis of his characteristic narrative and linguistic strategies; a special concern here is his exploration—generally anguished—of homosexual relationships.