ABSTRACT Demands for reparations led by African American communities for centuries of enslavement parallel calls by the South African state for the reparation of socioeconomic disadvantage rooted in colonial and apartheid pasts. Where such appeals are necessary and legitimate within a broader context of social redress and reconciliation, a comparative, relational reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull (1998) extends normative ideologies of reparations to include a critical engagement with existential reparation. This paper offers a literary exploration of the efficacy of reparations in overcoming legacies of racial discrimination and disadvantage. It argues further argues that Beloved and Country of My Skull’s creative representations of the tension between healing/repair and irreparable woundedness do not just engage chronic black ontological precarity; their narrative interrogation of (the possibility of) existential reparation problematizes (historically) conventional identitarian processes and advances morally responsive and socially transformative ways of being in the world.

中文翻译：

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Toni Morrison的《心爱的人》和Antjie Krog的《我的头骨之乡》中的赔偿竞赛，修复的可能性

摘要由非裔美国人社区领导的对奴隶制的赔偿要求已有数百年之久，与此同时，南非国家呼吁对植根于殖民和种族隔离时代的社会经济劣势进行赔偿。在更广泛的社会救济与和解背景下，当此类呼吁是必要且合法的时，对托尼·莫里森（Toni Morrison）的《心爱的人》（Beloved）（1987）和安特洁·克罗格（Antjie Krog）的《我的骷髅国》（1998）的比较性关系解读扩展了赔偿的规范意识形态，包括与存在的赔偿。本文对赔偿在克服种族歧视和不利传统方面的功效进行了文学上的探索。它进一步论证说，“心爱的人”和“我的头骨之乡”关于愈合/修复与不可挽回的伤口之间的紧张关系的创造性表示不仅涉及长期的黑人本体论pre变。他们对存在赔偿的可能性进行的叙事质疑使（历史上）传统的身份认同过程成为问题，并促进了道德上回应和社会变革的存在方式。