Page 24 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2018

Judging a book by its cover Corinne Sandwith, Department of English
What does it mean to pause at the threshold of the book, to read the ‘outside’ rather than the ‘inside’? What insights can be gained by shifting attention to the book as object – its size, cover design, wrapping and presentation?
Scholars have coined the term ‘paratext’ to describe the
many elements that make up
the packaging of books such as prefaces, dedications and cover images. This zone of transaction, vestibule or threshold introduces
the book to the reader in particular ways, establishes expectations and invites particular classifications – as fiction, history or biography. Literary scholars have tended to focus on
the ‘inside’ of the book – on narrative strategies, preoccupations, plot
lines and characterisation. But
there is increasing awareness of the interpretive potential of the paratext itself. By pausing on the threshold, the literary critic is able to shed light on the long history of textual production and reception – on the different roles the text has been assigned, and the particular ideological interests it has been invited to serve.
The recent work of Corinne
Sandwith, Associate Professor in the Department of English, has turned to the analysis of changing paratextual presentation of works of African literature. In an article published in the Journal of Southern African Studies in 2018, she focuses on Thomas Mofolo’s Sesotho novel, Chaka, first published by the Morija Book Depot in Lesotho in 1925. Her research traces the fortunes of Mofolo’s Chaka as it
moved from Morija mission station
in the 1920s to its re-publication as an English novel in London in 1931, and to its later entry into the Parisian literary scene and occupied France. Also important have been subsequent translations into German, Afrikaans, Kiswahili and Italian as well as the novel’s re-publication in the period of decolonisation as part of the ‘African Writers Series’ alongside other ‘African greats’ such as Chinua Achebe.
Each new version of the book entails
a different paratextual staging, encoding a different understanding
of the meaning and value of the text. Sandwith’s research homes in on the details of these changes in order to explore more general questions about the ways in which African literary texts have been categorised and framed in successive historical and geographical contexts. In the case of Chaka, the text has undergone a fascinating journey from the categories of ‘missionalia’, and anthropology to the work of a ‘black author’, an example of ‘African Literature’ and novel of postcolonial resistance.
Also compelling about these longitudinal studies is the insight
they provide into the textures and preoccupations of particular historical moments. A reading of the paratext thus has important historical value as a means of elucidating the complex, contradictory movements and tensions that give each historical moment its distinctive shape.
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