Narrative miscegenation in Zoë Wicomb's David's story

ABSTRACT

This article explores the notion that narrativity is a form of miscegenation in Zoë Wicomb's David's story (2001). Narrative miscegenation destabilizes the notion of unequivocal authorial authority by positing a dialogic relationship between the many “authors” of a text. The article, therefore, draws on the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin to show the ways in which the novel invokes a web of responsibility for authorship. Especially important is the way in which David's story self-reflexively anticipates and invokes the reader as constitutive of the text, so as to show that all texts – including “master narratives,” such as history and the discourse of “shame” associated with miscegenation and coloured identity – are “authored” by us all. Finally this article argues that these master narratives are therefore open to dialogic re-negotiation of meaning and purpose.