The crisis of representation : the contradictions of writing a feminist biography in Redi TIhabi’s Khwezi : the remarkable story of Fezekile Ntsukela

Abstract

This article explores the contradictions of writing a feminist biography through a reading of Redi Tlhabi’s Khwezi: The Remarkable Story of Fezekile Ntsukela. In particular, it notes the tensions that inevitably arise between the desire to do justice to the life of the biographical subject and the feminist biographer’s desire to tackle the injustices of a patriarchal society. I argue that TIhabi’s biography falls short of conforming to the conventions of biography because her feminist political project to reclaim Fezekile’s voice, a young woman who was vilified by a patriarchal society for laying a rape charge against the former South African president Jacob Zuma and stalwart of the ANC, takes precedence over the writing of a life. I argue that Tlhabi’s voice becomes dominant, drowning Fezekile’s story. The author’s project to retrieve the biographer’s voice is limited by the process of biographical writing, which necessarily entails reconstructing the story from the biographer’s perspective. I set this discussion in the context of recent scholarship on the biographer’s objectivity and neutrality in relating her perspective of Fezekile’s story.