Alfred Schaffer, Shaka en die transnasionalisme

Abstract

In this article, I read the Dutch poet Alfred Schaffer’s volume of poetry Mens dier ding (Man animal thing) against the background of transnationalism. I employ transnationalism as critical or hermeneutic perspective and focus on the identity of the author, the themes worked out in the volume and the use of anachronism and metapoetical references as literary strategies in support of the transnational nature of the text. Reference is made to the way in which Schaffer’s biography (his Dutch-Aruban descent, his movement between the Netherlands and South Africa, his views on poetry) facilitates a transnational reading of his volume Mens dier ding based on the history of the Zulu king Shaka as depicted in Thomas Mofolo’s novel Chaka (published in 1925). The article also reads Mens dier ding against the background of the idea that transnational literature is a particular kind of literature that emerges at a specific point in history and deals with issues and themes associated with imperialism, colonisation, decolonisation
and globalisation such as migration, displacement, cultural hybridity, identity, citizenship and the status of refugees. This reading is prompted by the fact that Schaffer displaces the historical Shaka to the present and eventually also represents him as an asylum seeker in an unnamed country. I discuss the volume’s formal features, the transnational conversation with Mofolo’s novel, the use of anachronism and the insertion of metapoetical elements in the text as literary strategies to deal with transnational issues such as migration, displacement, racial hierarchies, inequality and refugee experience.