Graduate

Hi friends,

I graduated in April 2023 and I’m so happy. Finally I have earned a PhD in Creative Writing and can call myself doctor. After so much hard work it feels unreal.

I had two international examiners and one local. I was worried about the international examiners because at all stages of writing my historical novel, The Buried Chameleon, my supervisor reminded me that it had make sense to someone who lives outside South Africa.

In the end I received better feedback from both the international examiners. Examiner Y gave me 92%! I was happy with such positive feedback especially as I was working on my thesis right through the Covid 19 lockdown and had not one but two episodes of writers block.

But all’s well that ends well and here is a picture of me on my graduation day.

My citation

The Buried Chameleon is a sophisticated novel, combining multiple story lines across key historical periods in SA history from the perspective of numerous characters. It focuses on the stories of three women negotiating the complexities of personal and political lives at the Cape in the periods of slavery, abolition, and post-1994. It highlights the ambiguity of romantic love, which has the power to unite and positively transform, but also to expresses itself violently through the desire to possess. The novel significantly adds to the literature about Cape slavery, connecting the experience of women under slavery with the specific forms taken by gender-based violence in contemporary SA. The reflective essay creates a wider context through the link with African-American slave narratives.