African feminist narrative strategies against gender-based violence in selected novels by Busisekile Khumalo.

Abstract

Gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa remains a pervasive and systemic social issue affecting women. This thesis critically examines how Busisekile Khumalo’s novels The Harvard Wife (2017), Nomaswazi (2019), and Fallen Candle (2020) portray the effects of gender-based violence and articulate narrative strategies that resist it. The study argues that storytelling in these texts serves as a form of social justice by educating, critiquing, and challenging cultural perceptions of gender-based violence. Using textual analysis, the study foregrounds the often-invisible effects of gender-based violence on women. Grounded in African Feminism, it positions black women’s fiction as intellectual activism challenging systemic gender oppression. The study explores how Khumalo deploys narrative strategies to expose the construction and consequences of gender-based violence, and highlights women’s resistance, resilience, and transformation from victims into agents of change. These representations demonstrate storytelling as a site of resistance, advocacy, and transformative engagement, while also highlighting broader psychological and social consequences. Future research could specifically investigate male survivors’ experiences, critically analyse constructions of masculinity, and assess digital storytelling as an emerging methodological approach.