Abstract
This article takes up the question of “crime writing” and rejoins the debate around
whether such literature stands in for the “political novel” in postapartheid South
Africa. What social function might crime writing be serving? Research by political
economists and cultural anthropologists suggests that acts of writing in “social
detection” mode (rather than “crime writing”) serve as an allegory for occulted
sociopolitical conditions. Cultural difference is seen, once again, to play a pivotal
role in the legitimation of power, and writers in the detection mode are
correspondingly seen to be probing the possibility of a resurgence of “bad”
difference. This notion, it is argued, is a key differentiator in an otherwise murky
scene in which the borderline between licit and illicit, and right and wrong, has
become obscure. While many South African writers are brought into the discussion,
including but not restricted to crime authors, a key novel by leading crime writer
Deon Meyer is read as a case study to illustrate the more general points made in the
article.