“Writing Home”: Storytelling as Cultural Translation in Jolyn Phillips’s ,i>Tjieng Tjang Tjerries

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the mixture of English and Afrikaans that Jolyn Phillips employs in her short story collection, Tjieng Tjang Tjerries, to capture a  sense of the idiom and the lived realities of the coloured fishing community of Gansbaai in the Western Cape. In addition, I locate the collection within a  tradition of short story sequences by women writers from marginalized groups, and focus on the ways in which the interlinked narratives it contains emphasize the notion that personal identity, community and place are inextricably connected. Ultimately, I maintain that, despite the bleak  socioeconomic circumstances, alcoholism and abuse that Phillips depicts in many of the stories, the dominant tone of the collection is not one of  disenchantment with contemporary South African realities. This is because of the gentleness and affection with which Phillips treats her subjects, and the  gleeful brand of raunchily direct humour she injects into her stories.