Browsing by Author "Van Der Merwe, Meg"

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    Of flowers and tears
    (University of Western Cape, 2018) Rodkin, Hayley Amanda; Van Der Merwe, Meg
    The collection of ten short stories, Of Flowers and Tears, aims to capture the events that have shaped my life, impacted on my community. It hopefully gives a voice to topics such as mental trauma, sibling strife, abortion, drug use and abuse, suicide, as well as political and social activism. Whilst none of the topics are new, the collection could potentially add to a growing genre of short story fiction by local authors which examine issues relating to trauma, loss, violence and the acknowledgement of identities. As South Africans, we carry many metaphoric scars (including psychological, socio-economic, sexual) as well as literal ones, which act as testimonies to our violent and frequently traumatic past and present. Even though most of the material used in my collection forms part of my personal memory bank and will be interpreted in a wholly fictional way, I propose that such a collection speaks to pertinent, present and pervasive realities.
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    When the village sleeps
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Magona, Sindiwe; Van Der Merwe, Meg
    This thesis consists of a creative and in-depth research component: a speculative novel, When the Village Sleeps, and a reflective long essay. It is about a young woman, Mandlakazi, who was born severely malformed, the result of deliberate invitro chemical exposure by her teen mother, Busisiwe. Busisiwe watched her own mother raise three children with the help of the child grant and decided that she would be better off financially were she to take advantage of the grant system by having a disabled baby.