The paper shows how Nadine Gordimer's novel The Pickup can be read as a radical reworking of the traditions of romance, most specifically of the colonial desert romance. E M Hull's novel The Sheik is discussed in order to highlight key patterns of this genre, particularly with reference to Rachel Blau DuPlessis’ distinction between the female protagonist as hero or heroine. Whilst The Sheik begins by introducing the figure of Diana Mayo as a female hero on a quest for freedom from the constrictions of British patriarchy in the Algerian desert, by its conclusion the narrative has been androcentrically and colonially reconfigured so that Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan and his complex identity has become the centre of the narrative; moreover, the desert has become part of the narrative orchestration of this masculine centre. By contrast, in The Pickup, the female protagonist Julie Summers increasingly becomes the centre of the narrative in contrast to her husband Ibrahim, who is estranged from his desert homeland in his restless desire to become part of the world of western cities and affluence. Gordimer's novel gives the desert a polyvalent role, representing it, in contrast to human civilization, as temporally transcendent, but also as a mundane space adjacent to the debris of the everyday world, with which Julie becomes increasingly more familiar. In finally deciding not to obey her husband and accompany him on his migratory quest to the USA, Julie opts to stay with the desert and the community of relations she has established with Ibrahim's family, thus fully abandoning her role as heroine in a romance‐centred plot.
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