’n Interseksionele lesing van Lynthia Julius se Kinderlê

This article consists of an intersectional reading of Lynthia Julius’s second volume of poetry Kinderlê, published in 2024. I begin by interpreting the introductory poem in the volume, “1 Gepubliseerdiërs 13”, in which the speaker protests being consistently referred to as a “bruin digter” (a ‘brown’ or ‘coloured’ poet). I read this protest as an invitation to approach the volume through an intersectional (or matrix) rather than an essentialising (or single-axis) lens. The article then identifies aspects of intersectionality theory that will help produce a nuanced reading of Julius’s second volume, namely an understanding of the theory’s origins and the contexts in which it developed, its attention to the tension between dominant and imaginary frameworks, and its use by some researchers as a heuristic instrument and provisional concept. These theoretical vantage points guide a reading that shows how the volume explores the intersections between categories such as race, gender and class, while also adding further layers —including issues of authorship, language, religion and mental health. Special attention is given to Julius’s rewriting of Paul Celan’s famous poem “Todesfuge” in her poem “Bruinfuga” and the cycle of poems titled “Kinderlê”, which creatively re-imagines the historical killing of 32 Nama children by ‘Bushmen’ (the word that the text uses). I conclude that intersectionality can indeed function as a heuristic instrument and prism that illuminates both the complex interwoven identity categories within individual poems and the volume as a whole.