Faculty of Humanities
School of Languages
Department of English
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
The research of Ms Molly Brown into fantasy and its importance for child readers received international recognition when an article was published in The Lion and the Unicorn, the prestigious children’s literature journal of The Johns Hopkins University Press. In this article – Why are South Africans afraid of tokoloshes? – Ms Brown attempts to explain why so little fantasy has been produced for older children by South African authors. She finds that social factors such as religious conservatism and classical capitalist values, both of which were identified by Ursula le Guin as inhibiting responses to fantasy in the USA 40 years ago, may still be operating in South Africa today. She goes on to argue that destructive cultural schisms may have done even more to inhibit the development of South African fantasy since the heightened racial sensibilities characterising South Africa also complicate any attempt by white writers to make creative use of indigenous folklore lest they become vulnerable to charges of literary colonialism, the forcible seizure of tropes and figures belonging by right to others. Ms Brown suggests that reading fantasy should not be viewed simply as an escapist activity, since reading examples of truly indigenous fantasy may contribute to cultural healing by enabling children from post-colonial societies to regain an awareness of and pride in their own stories and in the societies that produced them
Contact person: Ms MA Brown.
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