'Tell All the Truth, but Tell it Slant': A Poetics of Truth and Reconciliation

Abstract

There is a voice that tries to speak the truth. This essay will suggest that the discourse on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC] has perhaps ignored this most invisible of things, and has looked for the truth of the Commission everywhere except where it might be found, if indeed it can be found at all. To the extent that it is possible to oppose the truth of the voice to another truth, it may be useful to make use of a notion of poetics; even a sublime poetics.