N°019_Vol.2_17

Introduction: In the postmodern prose text, the notion of « jeu » can be read as a key literary tool while exhibiting the question of “the writing of chaos” (Tuo Souleymane, 2015).

Such an artwork is positioned at the bank of the literature of excess. Through an introspective novel production by K. Matlwa rhetorics is turned into an impact of the atypical usage of plays where the writer depicts a few characters within a specific narration. Such a utilization lays bare the issue of calling into question the matter of artwork itself. Therefore, this novel issued many decades after the end of apartheid becomes a vector, within its depiction of a great number of variances of the citizens of the rainbow nation (South Africa). Analyzing such a writing style dwells a unique stand in order to try to understand this multifaceted architext. This topic, among other things, exposes the problem of the revisitation of the orthodoxy in novel production. Thus her text carries a few hypotheses. In this paper three will be used.

When the first one lays bare the fact that linguistic hybridation can be viewed as the expression of identity, the second one says that the fragmentation of her narrative is a sign of the exhibition of trauma from apartheid and its drawbacks. As for the last one, it says that orality has to be considered as a subversive tool vis-à-vis the western literary orthodoxy. Such an amount of hypotheses bring about a true aesthetic dissonance.Therefore , it destabilizes the reader . That is what leads to the following questions: Isn’t the issue of “jeu” a writing device in the understanding the south African novelist? What are its features in Coconut? Moreover, how does this notion, be it connotated or denotated, enable Kopano M to call into question les mechanisms of   resistance within both ideological and historical contexts? The analysis of this perspective will take into account the use of postmodern theory with the concepts of “jeu” and “collage”.

The goal of this paper is to highlight the fact that the usage of play is a writing device used by Kopano as an argumentative target on the one hand. On the other hand, through such a literary depiction, the novelist shows that her prose text carries a dynamic matter. To reach such a goal, this study shall, first deal with a funny usage of atypical paremics, then orality will be visited as a writing thread in Kopano’s text before ending with a polyphonical narration.