Unsettling South Africa's inert past:

ABSTRACT

This review essay discusses Denis Hirson's most recent work, White scars: on reading and rites of passage (2006) — a detailed exploration of his relationship with four different books at crucial periods within his life. White scars examines the emotional importance of reading and suggests that, in the absence of a place of belonging, books may often provide a viable home. In examining four seminal texts in his reading life, White scars elucidates how and why Hirson became a writer by examining the genesis of all his previous work, most particularly his relationship to the writing of Georges Perec, whose Je me souviens (1978) provided the impetus for I remember King Kong (the boxer) (2004) and We walk straight so you better get out the way (2005). In his attention to Perec's work Hirson illustrates how the calcified configurations of a traumatic collective history may be reanimated through the painstaking recuperation of seemingly insignificant details of personal memory.