A conversation with Elleke Boehmer

Journal article

Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature at the University of Oxford, is the author of several novels, including Screens Against the Sky, Bloodlines and Nile Baby, and a collection of short stories entitled Sharmilla and Other Portraits. Her most recent novel, The Shouting in the Dark, was published by Sandstone Press in July 2015. Set between South Africa and the Netherlands in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, it tells the story of Ella, a young girl growing up in a claustrophobic family household dominated by her damaged and often drunken father. In this conversation, which took place at the University of Oxford in August 2015, Boehmer discusses her reasons for writing this, her latest novel, its imagery and themes, and how it relates to her previous literary work.

Authors: Davies, D

• Publication status: Published
• Publisher: Routledge
• Journal: Journal of Postcolonial Writing
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 737-748
• Publication date: 2015-11-01
• DOI: 10.1080/17449855.2015.1108926
• EISSN: 1744-9863
• ISSN: 1744-9855
• Keywords: Elleke Boehmer; literature; The Shouting in the Dark; history and politics; life-writing; South Africa; the Netherlands