ABSTRACT

The body of dystopian texts in South African literature is relatively small and largely limited to the writing of white authors. Some of the best known examples of dystopian novels are Promised Land by Karel Schoeman, going back to 1972, and J.M. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K, published in 1983. Both texts sketch a dark future for South Africa in response to the apartheid regime (1948-1994). Examples of novels with a dystopian orientation published since 1994, the date that marks the transition to inclusive democracy in South Africa, include Oemkontoe van die nasie (Spear of the Nation) (2001) by P.J. Haasbroek and, of course, Disgrace (1999) by J.M. Coetzee. In 2009, Afrikaans novelist Louis Krüger published an apocalyptic novel Wederkoms (Second Coming), which is a response to growing concerns about environmentalist issues in South Africa, a theme that also reverberates in Horrelpoot (Trencherman) (2006) by Eben Venter and Moxyland (2008) by Lauren Beukes, the two novels that form the main focus of this chapter.