A Victory of Sorts: All Thirteen Cents and Bitter, Too

Abstract

"Two contemporary texts, Bitter Fruit and Thirteen Cents, portray a rather harsh social and political reality of the South African milieu, one of political sterility and social deprivation in which not even family bonds survive the upheavals of the past, nor the present. For reasons that need careful plotting, it would seem as though neither of these two writers place much faith in old bonds and institutions beyond the need to come to terms with the past and the need to survive the present...in proclaiming the death of the family - at least fictively - these writers seem to grapple with the intangible underbelly of society that requires further research. In the ten years of democracy there is nothing to celebrate if the family unit is no longer viewed as an integral part of the social fabric."