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Trauma and the African Animist Imaginary in Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love and Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen, and Me

Trauma and the African Animist Imaginary in Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love and Delia... This essay intervenes in debates surrounding trauma theory and postcolonial studies, tracing how forms of African animism can lead to a decolonized discourse of trauma. Taking the postcolonial critique of trauma theory’s Eurocentrism as a point of departure, the essay focuses on two contemporary novels of the African diaspora: Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love and Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen, and Me. Narrating local forms of survival in post–civil war Sierra Leone, these novels use animist modes of consciousness to theorize the collective trauma of, and envision political futures for, Sierra Leone. Forna’s writing is emblematic of realism, while Jarrett-Macauley’s is an example of animist realism. Both novels are united, however, by an animism at the level of narrative process, drawing on the spirit world and possession rituals to counter therapeutic and humanitarian ideologies. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png English Language Notes Duke University Press

Trauma and the African Animist Imaginary in Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love and Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen, and Me

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Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Regents of the University of Colorado
ISSN
0013-8282
eISSN
2573-3575
DOI
10.1215/00138282-7716171
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This essay intervenes in debates surrounding trauma theory and postcolonial studies, tracing how forms of African animism can lead to a decolonized discourse of trauma. Taking the postcolonial critique of trauma theory’s Eurocentrism as a point of departure, the essay focuses on two contemporary novels of the African diaspora: Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love and Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen, and Me. Narrating local forms of survival in post–civil war Sierra Leone, these novels use animist modes of consciousness to theorize the collective trauma of, and envision political futures for, Sierra Leone. Forna’s writing is emblematic of realism, while Jarrett-Macauley’s is an example of animist realism. Both novels are united, however, by an animism at the level of narrative process, drawing on the spirit world and possession rituals to counter therapeutic and humanitarian ideologies.

Journal

English Language Notes – Duke University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2019

References

  • Incantation, Ideophone, Reduplication, and Poetry
    Adéẹ̀kọ́, Adélékè
  • ‘Animism’ Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology
    Bird-David, Nurit
  • Not outside the Range: One Feminist Perspective on Psychic Trauma
    Brown, Laura Caruth, Cathy
  • Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Sierra Leone: Thomas Decker’s Juliohs Siza, Roman Politics, and the Emergence of a Postcolonial African State
    Caulker, Tcho Mbaimba
  • Beyond Eurocentrism: Trauma Theory in a Global Age
    Craps, Stef Buelens, Gert Durrant, Sam Eaglestone, Robert
  • Undoing Sovereignty: Towards a Theory of Critical Mourning
    Durrant, Sam Buelens, Gert Durrant, Sam Eaglestone, Robert
  • Explorations in Animist Materialism: Notes on Reading/Writing African Literature, Culture, and Society
    Garuba, Harry
  • Rewriting the SLTRC: Masculinities, the Arts of Forgetting, and Intimate Space in Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen, and Me and Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love
    Imma, Z’étoile
  • African Modes of Self-Writing
    Mbembe, Achille
  • Necropolitics
    Mbembe, Achille Meintjes, Libby
  • Trauma Envy
    Mowitt, John
  • Decolonizing Trauma Studies: A Response
    Rothberg, Michael
  • The Rites of the Child: Global Discourses of Youth and Reintegrating Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone
    Shepler, Susan
  • Studio Photography in Freetown
    Viditz-Ward, Vera Léon, Pascal Martin Saint
  • Science as a Vocation
    Weber, Max Gerth, H. H. Mills, C. Wright
  • Incantation, Ideophone, Reduplication, and Poetry
    Adéẹ̀kọ́, Adélékè
  • ‘Animism’ Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology
    Bird-David, Nurit
  • Not outside the Range: One Feminist Perspective on Psychic Trauma
    Brown, Laura Caruth, Cathy
  • Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Sierra Leone: Thomas Decker’s Juliohs Siza, Roman Politics, and the Emergence of a Postcolonial African State
    Caulker, Tcho Mbaimba
  • Beyond Eurocentrism: Trauma Theory in a Global Age
    Craps, Stef Buelens, Gert Durrant, Sam Eaglestone, Robert
  • Undoing Sovereignty: Towards a Theory of Critical Mourning
    Durrant, Sam Buelens, Gert Durrant, Sam Eaglestone, Robert
  • Explorations in Animist Materialism: Notes on Reading/Writing African Literature, Culture, and Society
    Garuba, Harry
  • Rewriting the SLTRC: Masculinities, the Arts of Forgetting, and Intimate Space in Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen, and Me and Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love
    Imma, Z’étoile
  • African Modes of Self-Writing
    Mbembe, Achille
  • Necropolitics
    Mbembe, Achille Meintjes, Libby
  • Trauma Envy
    Mowitt, John
  • Decolonizing Trauma Studies: A Response
    Rothberg, Michael
  • The Rites of the Child: Global Discourses of Youth and Reintegrating Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone
    Shepler, Susan
  • Studio Photography in Freetown
    Viditz-Ward, Vera Léon, Pascal Martin Saint
  • Science as a Vocation
    Weber, Max Gerth, H. H. Mills, C. Wright