Story-telling strategies employed in three Northern Sothodetective short stories

Abstract

A short introduction will be given to the history of literary writing in Northern Sotho until the 1950s when the first example of detective writing appeared in Ramaila’s volume of short stories, Molomatsebe. Subsequently, the story-telling strategies used by three Northern Sotho authors, namely Ramaila, Matlala and Lebopa (appearing in the anthology Makhura’ lefehlo compiled by Mampuru, 1991) will be followed in their respective detective short stories published in 1951, 1969 and 1991. The focus will be on (a) the narration strategy employed by the authors as well as the role of the narrator in the short stories; and (b) the postponement of the disclosure of the true nature of critical information to the reader.