ABSTRACT

“The Myth of the Lying Woman”:
An Analysis of Testimony in Contemporary South African Fiction

Sima Meghdadi

This paper focuses on the notion that the social narratives that circulate around the topic of sexual violence have harmful effects, ultimately perpetuating rape-tolerant culture. With South Africa as the country on which my research is centred, I argue that these narratives dissuade rape survivors from coming forward and sharing their stories, which are frequently met with disbelief and a lack of seriousness. Moreover, I offer an analysis of Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit, one of this paper’s primary texts, and attend to the complexities of effecting reconciliation. I maintain that the novel refuses the idea that with speaking comes healing and that past and present can be detached from one another. Dangor’s aforementioned text and Kagiso Lesego Molope’s This Book Betrays My Brother will inform the following analysis about rape-tolerant culture and survivor believability and help me draw attention to changes that need to be made.