Abstract:
Black queer feminist literature remains under-researched. This reflects the societal marginalisation of black queer authors in South Africa. Our
article offers a comparative analysis of the representation of black queer women by black queer and cisgender authors in selected isiXhosa and
English poetry. The poems selected are from Unam Wena (2021) by Mthunzikazi Mbungwana and red cotton (2018) by vangile gantsho. Firstly, we
explore how queer feminism is captured from a Xhosa perspective. Secondly, we explore how English is used to expose readers to black queerness,
and, thirdly, we question how literary scholarship influences or limits black queer feminist literature and the functionality of queer feminist poetry
as representations of black women. Discourse theory is used to examine how authors of the selected poetry construct knowledge about black
queerness from a feminist perspective and shape how people understand it. In this article we adopt a narrative enquiry within the constructionism
paradigm with qualitative textual analysis. Our analysis of the poetry reveals that, although the selected poets use two different languages, the
same protest voice is foregrounded, with observable differences being primarily technical—namely how form, sound, and structure are employed
to set the tone and mood in the issues addressed.
