2017 / 22 Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere

Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere è una rivista annuale a stampa e online ad accesso aperto del Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università di Trieste (DiSU), pubblicata dal 1994 presso la casa editrice EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste. È apparsa in precedenza con il complemento di titolo Rivista di letterature e civiltà Anglo-germaniche e, dal 2005 al 2011, con quello di Rivista di Letterature straniere, Comparatistica e Studi culturali. La rivista pubblica contributi originali dedicati alle letterature di lingua inglese, tedesca e francese. Prospero ospita contributi inediti di studiosi italiani e stranieri che pongono il testo letterario e l’analisi testuale al centro di più ampie riflessioni di carattere ermeneutico, filologico e storico-culturale. In particolare, si apre alle convergenze di carattere interdisciplinare e transdisciplinare tra la letteratura e gli altri saperi. Numeri monografici curati da guest editors italiani e stranieri su temi specifici si alternano a numeri miscellanei.

An extensive secondary literature on the literary work of Heinrich Böll has rightly emphasized the weight and role of this engaged writer in the period stretching from the Second World War to the 1980s. Böll’s work has traditionally been examined in the light of his realistic writing style and the critical representation of the present, which made him famous as the “critical conscience” and militant author of the Federal Republic of Germany. In the last decades, literary criticism with relatively few exceptions (Badewien and Schmidt-Bergmann 2014, Schubert 2017) has paid little attention to the author even though his utopian and especially dystopian discourse certainly warrants further analysis. Over the years, Boll’s critical discourse of society developed along utopian and dystopian lines in much of his work, in his short stories, in his more mature prose works and even in his plays. Utopia and dystopia (Bernhard 1970, Tomko 2014) act as an optical instrument in the literary work, as a magnifying and distorting mirror of reality that transcends the limits of the engaged writer’s “prophetic” role and critically presents the origins of social contradictions and evils. Böll’s typical heroes are endowed with the characteristics of dystopian characters, since they are problematic outsiders in society who exercise a disobedient resistance against upper instances and demiurgical figures. The aim of this contribution is to pursue the utopian and, above all, dystopian Leitmotiv in Heinrich Böll’s first play "Ein Schluck Erde" (1962), in order to discuss the effect of his works in the new millennium. In fact, his reversed and distorted images offer an opposing utopian view of human pietas, as a means in the struggle against capitalist greed, technological ambition and warlike hybris.

This paper deals with the topic of reconciliation and nation building in postapartheid South Africa by focusing on James Gregory’s memoir "Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend". Written in collaboration with British journalist Bob Graham and strategically published in 1995, when Mandela’s iconic status as ‘Father of the Nation’ was at its highest, this book tells the exemplary conversion story of one of Madiba’s prison guards during his long years of incarceration. It shows how the racist Afrikaner warder turned into a sympathetic confidant and friend through the epiphanic discovery of the moral stature and commendable humanity of the ‘black terrorist’. While considering the vexed question of "Goodbye Bafana"’s historical reliability and controversial reception, especially in South Africa, my aim is to better investigate the discursive policy, semantic layers, and identity-construction strategies in a work that has been so far largely neglected by critics. Via his self-portrayal as a ‘redeemed Afrikaner’ (and Graham’s mediating voice), Gregory appears to promote solidarity, social repair, and a new sense of community belonging.