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Pyramids and Prejudice: A Study of Cultural Discrimination in Lauretta Ngcobo’s <i>And they didn’t die</i>


Sophia I. Akhuemokhan
H. Oby Okolocha

Abstract

A South African classic, Lauretta Ngcobo’s novel, And they didn’t die, explores the nexus of hegemony, culture, and transformation under apartheid rule. Edward Said’s thesis on the hierarchy of culture provides the conceptual framework for an analysis of politico-cultural agency in Ngcobo’s novel. Three characters in the narrative—Siyalo, Jezile, and Lungu—are used to comment on the cultural dynamics inherent in three different but interlocking sites: the nine-to-five working environment, rural Bantu culture, and the ambiguous location of “African Whiteness.” The paper establishes that the life of each character betrays culture’s negative discriminating power and the amplification of negativity by State policy.

Keywords: prejudice, culture, apartheid, industrialism, patriarchy


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eISSN: 2458-746X
print ISSN: 0855-1502