Abstract
#Fallism has taken South African literature to a precipice. A growing
mistrust in the country’s postcolonial politics and the continuing
physical and economic oppression of black bodies – captured in the
spirit of #RhodesMustFall – has led to a questioning of the rational
desire to ‘put into words’. The radical social and political change
required, critics imply, can no longer be adequately understood
through the certainty of the written form: The path to a true decolonial
future is in live art. This paper uses these suggestions as
a springboard but refuses to accept the ‘death of the text’ that is
implied. Rather I utilise interventions from the 1980s to once again
encourage the academy to recognise the power of ‘literary nonscenes’
where the performed and the written interact. Moreover,
I argue that scholars should begin to read for emotion and, in so
doing, open the space for the expression of Black joy.