Anne Landsman's The Devil's Chimney:A magical realist narrative for a new nation?

TL;DR: The Devil's Chimney (1997) as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the genre of magical realism, where Anne Landsman deploys the genre to rewrite the exclusive narratives of colonial and apartheid South Africa and present a more inclusive national narrative.

Abstract: In her novel, The Devil's Chimney (1997), Anne Landsman deploys the genre of magical realism to rewrite the exclusive narratives of colonial and apartheid South Africa and present a more inclusive national narrative. She achieves this via Connie, the unreliable narrator, who imagines the story of Beatrice, a colonial Englishwoman living on a farm in the Karoo. Beatrice disrupts familial narratives through improper private acts that breach the bounds of her society.As characteristic of the genre, her identity is rendered fluid and ambiguous as she trespasses into the domains of empire-building, interracial sex and miscegenation. Beatrice's story is dependent on Nomsa, her domestic worker, whose representation as the extreme other is subverted when she reclaims what she believes is hers and gains restitution from the text.The denouement is unhappy for both characters, arguably reflecting a truth about the present - that socially constructed difference lives on. However, Connie's engagement with the past and...