From solidarity with the people to solidarity with the ‘company’: State capture and Karen Jayes’ dystopian novel For the Mercy of Water (2012)

• Authors: Mengel Ewald

Title variants

PL

Od solidarności z ludźmi po solidarność z ‘firmą’: Przejęcie państwa a dystopijna powieść Karen Jayes For the Mercy of Water (2012)

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

For the Mercy of Water sheds light on an uncanny conjunction between the rape of women, the rape of a country and the rape of the truth. It relates a story about the vulnerability and resilience of women in a phallogocentric world. It deals with the phenomenon of ‘state capture’, the exploitation and abuse of state institutions and resources for the sake of private profit. Last but not least, it examines the relation of journalism and novel writing and flies the flag of truth-telling as a form of bearing witness and ‘remembering’ in a post-factual and increasingly totalitarian environment.

PL

Powieść For the Mercy of Water rzuca światło na niesamowitą łączność pomiędzy gwałtem na kobiecie, gwałtem zadanym krajowi i gwałtem zadanym prawdzie. Opowiada historię o bezbronności i wytrzymałości kobiet w fallogoncentrycznym świecie. Zajmuje się zjawiskiem ‘przejmowania państwa’, wyzyskiem i nadużyciami w instytucjach państwowych i zasobach dla celów prywatnego zysku. Co nie mniej ważne, powieść rozpatruje relacje między dziennikarstwem a pisaniem powieści i promuje prawdomówność jako formę dawania świadectwa i ‘pamiętania’ w post-faktualnym i coraz bardziej totalitarnym środowisku.

Keywords

EN

South African dystopias; rape; privatization of water; state capture; truth-telling

PL

dystopie południowoafrykańskie; gwałt; prywatyzacja wody; przejęcie państwa; prawdomówność

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Gdański
• Journal: Beyond Philology: An International Journal of Linguistics, Literary Studies and English Language Teaching
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 15/3
• Pages: 105-118

Dates

published

2018

Contributors

author

Mengel Ewald

• Tomas Bata University in Zlín

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