The Complex Articulations of Class and Race in a South African Novel: Coconut by Kopano Matlwa

The official end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994 was expected to bring about important social and economic change for the black working class, and it did in several ways. Nonetheless, centuries of discrimination and dehumanisation of black and coloured people could not be wiped out so easily. Signs of the damage of Apartheid social engineering to the fabric of the Country and in the construction of individual identities of black South Africans are evident in the use of labels such as ‘coconut,’ a derogatory term used to identify a black person who is white inside. The term is so common that novelist Kopano Matlwa decided to use it as the title of her 2007 novel. The analysis presented here looks at the novel as a text which significantly contributes to the creation, as well as the reproduction, of hegemonic ideas around issues of class and race inside the South African society.