THIRTEEN CENTS BY K. SELLO DUIKER: REPRESENTING HOMOSEXUALITY

ABSTRACT This study examines how K. Sello Duiker’s novel Thirteen Cents shows homosexuality through Azure, a twelve-year-old street child in Cape Town after apartheid. It aims to explain how gender roles and sexual identities serve as survival tools in harsh conditions rather than personal choices. The study uses feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories to guide its analysis. These theories help highlight how Duiker critiques colonial legacies and social norms. It applies a close reading approach to key chapters, thematic coding to identify patterns, and compares the novel with other African texts on similar issues. The methodology included coding themes like power, survival, and identity across several chapters, ensuring a thorough and balanced approach. Data was gathered from the primary text and relevant secondary sources. The main findings show that poverty and hunger force Azure into sexual acts with older men. It reveals that strict ideas about gender break down when characters use power to control others. The study also finds that wealthy and powerful men exploit vulnerable boys without public challenge. It notes that community silence and indifference allow abuse to continue. The study concludes that Thirteen Cents challenges social inequality and rigid views about sexuality. By giving a voice to marginalized street children, the novel calls for more empathy and action. It recommends that future research should link literary analysis with social policy. It also suggests adding queer stories to school reading lists. Finally, it calls for new laws, support programs, and teamwork among scholars, activists, and policymakers to protect street-connected children from abuse.