L’apocalisse dell’identità bianca: una lettura decoloniale di July’s People di Nadine Gordimer

Abstract

This article aims to provide a decolonial reading of Nadine Gordimer’s apocalyptic novel July’s People (1981). Through the analysis of the collapse of the concept of whiteness at a spatial, identity, and linguistic level, this article demonstrates that Gordimer challenges mainstream futuristic apocalyptic narratives, which tend to celebrate white characters as saviours of the world, while casting Indigenous characters either in the background without a voice or as “a threat demanding to be contained”. By focusing on an imaginary period of interregnum, Gordimer also foregrounds new pathways for the white subject who must prepare to embrace the uncertain future of the black indigenous new political order.