KPD Maphalla’s autobiographical poetry: Narrating oneself in verse

Abstract

Self-writing is a literary site that seeks to interrogate issues of subjectivity, experience and laying oneself bare. Its proponents immerse themselves in a particular spatial and temporal frame such as the colonial times, the apartheid era and the democratic moment. There are autobiographical writings that celebrate individual consciousness, style and experience during the apartheid era in South Africa. This article investigates how, from a selection of his poetry, KPD Maphalla ‘narrates himself in verse’, where the focus is to distinguish Maphalla the author (the narrator) from Maphalla the character (the narrated, the self-referent). The article considers the autobiographical elements of theme and style as conveyors of the meeting place between the narrator and the narrated in Maphalla’s poetry.