Towards Reclaiming the Colonised Mind: The Liberating Fantasies of Duiker and Ihimaera

Authors

  • Molly Brown University of Pretoria, South Africa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21153/pecl2008vol18no2art1166

Keywords:

story, transformation, fantasy fiction, colonialisation, Bruno Bettelheim, K. Sello Duiker, Witi Ihimaera

Abstract

Ursula le Guin once observed that `'the story - from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace - is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding' and that while `'there have been great societies that did not use the wheel there have been no societies that did not tell stories' (1989, p.27). By comparing the story to the wheel, she gently reminds the technology-obsessed reader that verbal structures have as much, if not more, to offer our world than mechanical ones and that while one tells or listens to stories one is not merely taking part in an idle entertainment but performing an action with vital and potentially transformative functions.

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Author Biography

  • Molly Brown, University of Pretoria, South Africa

    Molly Brown grew up on an isolated farm in the Eastern Cape where she was exposed to Xhosa folklore from an early age. She is currently a senior lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Pretoria and her primary research interest is in fantasy whether written for adults or children.

References

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Published

2008-12-01

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Section

Articles

How to Cite

“Towards Reclaiming the Colonised Mind: The Liberating Fantasies of Duiker and Ihimaera” (2008) Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, 18(2), pp. 35–40. doi:10.21153/pecl2008vol18no2art1166.

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