Melancholia of the Privileged

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Notes

1 The word ‘siesie’ here is ‘a Xhosa/Afrikaans hybrid for little sister’ (Penny 26). In the novel, the term is used by the schoolchildren who refer to the black staff as ‘siesie’. While the meaning of the word is usually not derogatory, it is nonetheless patronising in this context. After all, the black staff members are considerably older than the pupils. It has thus a similar connotation to the terms ‘boy’ and ‘girl’, which white South Africans used to refer to their black staff during apartheid.