Longing for Love: Eros and National Belonging in Three Novels by Rayda Jacobs

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dc.contributor.authorMoolla, Fatima Fiona
dc.date.accessioned12/07/2023 15:51
dc.date.available12/07/2023 15:51
dc.date.issued2022
dc.description.abstractThe female Muslim descendant of Cape slavery is a key figure in the work of South African writer, Rayda Jacobs. Three of her novels, in particular, seem to track the social and political genealogy of the female Muslim descendant of slaves, namely, Eyes of the Sky (1996), The Slave Book (1998), and Sachs Street (2001). These novels trace, through the subjectivity of the female Muslim slave, the emergence of the South African nation from its origins at the Cape, through the hinterland, to its contemporary borders. The novels foreground the personal relationship of romantic love, which, of all the personal relationships, is the most volatile and dynamic, producing unexpected transformations. Love, which produces a child from the erotic encounter in Eyes of the Sky, and social union through marriage in The Slave Book, is presented as having the potential to transcend racial, class and religious boundaries in the colonial state. We see in the declining apartheid state presented in the third novel, Sachs Street, that the national allegorical potential of eros finally is not fully realised, leading to a reconceptualisation of romantic love in a transnational frame, centred nonetheless in Cape Town, South Africa. As much as these novels are historical, since they are written post-1994 reflecting the contemporary concerns of its author, they present a singular vision of the place of the female Muslim descendant of slaves in the South African nation, where the postcolonial nation is implicitly conceptualised as a white dominated derivative European nation-state.en_US
dc.identifier.citationMoolla, F.F., 2022. Longing for Love: Eros and National Belonging in Three Novels by Rayda Jacobs. Journal for Islamic Studies, 40, pp.22.en_US
dc.identifier.issn2957-9163
dc.identifier.issn0257-7062
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.25159/2957-9163/12425
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10566/9198
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherUnisa Pressen_US
dc.sourceJournal for Islamic Studies
dc.subjectRomantic loveen_US
dc.subjectNational allegoryen_US
dc.subjectSouth African literatureen_US
dc.subjectIslamen_US
dc.subjectRayda Jacobsen_US
dc.titleLonging for Love: Eros and National Belonging in Three Novels by Rayda Jacobsen_US
dc.typePreprinten_US
dcterms.bibliographicCitationMoolla, F. Fiona. 2022. �Longing for Love: Eros and National Belonging in Three Novels by Rayda Jacobs�. Journal for Islamic Studies 40:22 pages. https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/JIS/article/view/12425.

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