Rewriting Herstory: Women from Micro-Histories to South African Fiction

Abstract The study examines the writings of three South African novelists (Zakes Mda, Yvette Christiansë, and Zoë Wicomb) who have turned to history in order to construct the female protagonists of their novels. The female figures brought from history to literature are portraits painted based on historical records combined with fiction, emphasizing the fact that the roots of contemporary realities run deep in the past. Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness (2000), Yvette Christiansë’s Unconfessed (2006) and Zoë Wicomb’s Still Life (2020) focus on issues connected to female identity, slavery and oppression, voicing the silenced women who were fortunate enough to be recorded by the authorities of their time. The three novels, which can be described either as historical fiction and speculative biography, revive the stories of the prophetess Nongquawuse (The Heart of Redness), the slave women Sila van den Kaap (The Unconfessed) and Mary Prince (Still Life) using different techniques to rewrite history as her-story.