Narratives of Violence: Postcolonial Perspectives in André Brink’s and J.M Coetzee’s Fiction

This thesis investigates the representation of violence in the works of two major South African writers, André Brink and J.M. Coetzee, examining how their narratives engage with the historical, political, and philosophical dimensions of oppression under colonialism and apartheid. Anchored in the theoretical frameworks of Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary violence, Nelson Maldonado-Torres’s concept of the coloniality of being, and Johan Degenaar’s distinctions between physical, psychological, and structural violence, the study explores violence not only as a physical act but as a systemic and symbolic force embedded in language, power, and identity. The analysis demonstrates that Brink adopts a realist and politically engaged approach, foregrounding state-sanctioned brutality and the moral dilemmas of resistance, while Coetzee employs allegory, metafiction, and narrative indirection to interrogate both violence and its representation, emphasizing the complicity of discourse in sustaining systems of domination. Through close readings of A Dry White Season (1979) and A Chain of Voices (1982) by Brink, alongside The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee (1982) and Foe (1986) by Coetzee, this thesis reveals how literature functions as a space of ethical responsibility, resistance, challenging historical silences and reimagining possibilities beyond systemic violence. By juxtaposing these two authors’ strategies, the research highlights the persistent relevance of their works to contemporary debates on systemic injustice and historical memory. Ultimately, it argues that literature, far from being a passive record of violence, serves as an active instrument of resistance, inviting readers to confront the legacies of coloniality and to imagine more just and humane possibilities.