Identidades raciais e estereótipos femininos em Coconut de Kopano Matlwa

Abstract

South Africa went through a prolonged period of systematic oppression of black people that came to an end only in 1994, when there were the first democratic elections. Still, the country continued to live under the rule of the cultural values of the white minority. Consequently, the political climate is reflected in the country's literature, now living a new era for women writers, as they are gaining ground to address issues silenced in the past. Thus we have as object of study the novel Coconut (2007) by Kopano Matlwa, which reflects the social realities and current policies, showing how the Apartheid results continue to haunt race relations and the structures that promote inequality adapted to new circumstances in South Africa. We have the intention to capture how the author expresses women's experiences in her literary text and black young protagonists struggle to build their identities. We also point out the flaws that persist in contemporary South-African society and the danger that remains of binary thinking. We see how women are represented in the novel and also seek to understand how racial and gender permeate the beauty stereotypes policies built in this society, analyzing how the physical appearance influences the construction of the characters. Therefore, we investigate what implies being a black woman in the current South Africa, which remains governed by white and Western cultural values, even after the end of apartheid, and analyze how it interferes with the beauty standards pursued by the characters and the construction of these female black identities in contemporary South African society.