COLONIAL TRAUMA, DISPLACEMENT, AND RELATIONAL HEALING IN ABDULRAZAK GURNAH’S AFTERLIVES

Abstract

This study examines the interconnected themes of trauma, displacement, and the quest for healing in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives (2020). Situated within the frameworks of Postcolonial Theory and Trauma Theory, complimented with Homi Bhabha’s concept of mimicry and hybridity. The study investigates how the novel represents the psychological, cultural, and social consequences of German colonial rule in East Africa. Using qualitative textual analysis and close reading, the research explores the experiences of major characters such as Hamza, Ilyas, Afiya, and Khalifa in order to reveal the multiple forms of suffering produced by war, forced mobility, servitude, and historical rupture. The analysis demonstrates that trauma in Afterlives extends beyond physical violence and persists through memory, silence, fragmented narration, nightmares, and identity crisis. The study further argues that displacement in the novel operates on physical, social, and cultural levels, disrupting family structures, communal belonging, and selfhood. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s concepts of mimicry and hybridity, the paper shows how colonial influence generates fractured and unstable identities, particularly in the character of Ilyas, while Hamza embodies a more ambivalent negotiation of colonial experience. Finally, the study establishes that healing in Afterlives is gradual, relational, and incomplete. Rather than offering total recovery, Gurnah presents healing as a process sustained by love, trust, storytelling, and communal care. The paper concludes that the novel is both a historical reconstruction and an ethical meditation on survival, memory, and the enduring afterlives of colonial violence in East African or Tanzanian historical experience.