Sello Duiker: A Literary Analysis

K. Sello Duiker’s initiative behind Azure, the unreliable narrator, as the author of ‘Thirteen Cents’, is as effective in a genre such as magical realism. Azure experiences throughout the novel are unpredictable and are immediate (present tense)

An unreliable narrator according to David Lodge (Lodge), is someone who illustrates the connection between what is known and what is unknown (unconventional) leading to a novel evolving around magical realism (what appears to be Azure’s reality). With Azure as both a character as well as the narrator (first person, present tense) in the novel, David Lodge further argues that, what the character-narrator says, is as much as the reader will know. That is to say that the novel being read showing only one perspective of the events taking place, has influence towards the factor of an unreliable narrator. With the novel being read from a ‘twelve’ year old whose history motivates his understanding, perception and interpretation of the events he encounters and interprets to the reader,

Azure is at the stage of Liminality where he is not yet a man (according to him is thirteen years old) yet not a child who cannot fend for themselves, “I’m nearly thirteen years old. That means I know where to find food that hasn’t seen too many ants and flies…” (Duiker 5). Azure’s definition of what masculinity is, unfolds as ironic to the reader where the ideas of the character-narrator does not coincide with that of the reader, as explored by Chris Baldick (Baldick). This in turn creates confusion. Azure later asserts a more clear description of what defines a man/grown up for according to Azure, the steps to becoming a man comes with endurance from bad experiences, as well as having the will to survive and making them