ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the multiple ways in which domestic violence against women is brought into the public forum solely for the purpose of condemning women, not helping them. It examines the South African novel Tsotsi by Athol Fugard alongside its film adaptation by Gavin Hood, arguing that the two texts enact a narrative erasure of women’s subjectivity and through this they engender a normalisation of the gendered violence the women characters’ experience. The book then examines how violent language reduces women migrants to goods and services. It also focuses on the complex ways in which gender interacts with lesbian sexuality, race and tradition to shape women’s experiences of violence in various African contexts. The book analyses the concept of subverting familiar narratives by bringing in the perspective offered by child soldier narratives.
