Murdoch University
The Krishna Somers Foundation presents the year’s fifth lecture. The lecture will be given by
Felicity Hand
of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. Please come to the lecture, enjoy debating postcolonial theory with Felicity and drink some excellent wine (or orange juice).
Abstract
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novels form part of a twofold project. On one hand, they provide a chronicle of twentieth century Zanzibari history by filling in the gaps and silences of the narrative of post-colonial East Africa. On the other hand, through his work Gurnah poses searching questions about the construction of identity and the pain of alienation and loss. Post-colonial writing often falls into the trap of glossing over the fragmentations within indigenous cultures in its concern to denounce European colonization and extol native resistance. In his latest works Gurnah carries on this double task initiated in Memory of Departure (1987) his first novel and continued in Paradise (1994), his fourth, of recuperating the past and revealing the complexity of the East African Swahili cultures. The past is an absolutely vital element in the negotiation of identity but it comprises a renovated and selectively appropriated set of memories and discourses. The reinvention of the past may downplay the pre-immigrant circumstances, or they may serve as cover-ups of present ambivalences and in this respect Gurnah’s characters are highly accomplished liars. In this paper I would like to read Gurnah’s last three novels, Admiring Silence (1996), By the Sea (2001) and Desertion (2005) as examples of how history and memory intertwine and interfere with each other and how memory serves as both source and subject of the characters’ gradual acceptance of who they are and where they have come from.
Felicity Hand is Senior Lecturer in the English Department of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. She teaches British and American civilization and post-colonial literatures. She has published articles in Wasafiri, The Atlantic Literary Review and has a chapter on Abdulrazak Gurnah coming out shortly in a volume entitled Migrant Writers edited by Sheo Bhushan Shukla. She is scholar-in-residence in Murdoch University’s English program during August-September.
