This paper looks at the role of testimony and memory in the nation-building project in post-apartheid South Africa. Focusing on the autobiographical texts published by individuals who were involved with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I examine the ways in which these life writers address the contested sites of self and other, personal memory and official memory. Each of the writers under discussion draws on the testimonies of those who appeared before the Commission, incorporating the traumatic memories of others into their own memoirs, thus shaping less individualistic autobiographical accounts than is usual in autobiography and redefining selves for what is known as the “new South Africa”.
Drawing on the proliferation of collective memories which emerged from the TRC, these autobiographers are themselves actively contributing to the construction of collective memory. But, as Ernest Renan reminds us, although “the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common”—and shared historical narratives are crucial in this regard—it is equally important that the nation collectively suppresses specific aspects of knowledge of the past. Renan continues: “Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of the nation.” What is it that these memoirists remember to forget?