K. Sello Duiker’s Thirteen Cents: An Indictment of South Africa’s Post-Apartheid Society

Abstract

Thirteen Cents is set in Cape Town, South Africa following the 1994 democratic election of Nelson Mandela which formally marked the end of apartheid. While Duiker does not comment on government affairs directly, the social and political context of post-apartheid South Africa as it applies to the individual constitutes a major part of the novel. The child narrator witness’s crime, violence and misery upon his arrival in Sea Point. Soon enough, the reader realizes that this witnessing initiates further exploration of crucial aspects of post-Apartheid life in the city—how and why, for example, Cape Town, the inhabitants, and certain neighbourhoods, Sea Point in particular, are poorly considered. This study investigates the complications of freedom. A racial divide once enforced by law has become an economic divide that falls mostly along racial lines. Scholarly interpretations on Duiker abound but some measure of novelty in this work, though, is the way in which Sea Point is mapped in a very detailed manner, providing a clear, physical sense of the city. The study alternates between the realist and surrealist traditions as the protagonist experiences different realms of consciousness in other to stimulate the author’s critique of South Africans society. Duiker provides an excruciatingly realistic description of the dislocation and breakdown of communities and families in post-liberation South Africa. However, the apocalyptic ending as perceived through Azure’s eyes indicates the possibility for the growth of a more hopeful future.