{ "access": { "embargo": { "active": false, "reason": null }, "files": "public", "record": "public", "status": "open" }, "created": "2019-07-01T12:13:33.391209+00:00", "custom_fields": { "journal:journal": { "pages": "330-357", "title": "Postcolonial Interventions: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies (ISSN 2455 6564)", "volume": "Vol. IV, Issue 2" } }, "deletion_status": { "is_deleted": false, "status": "P" }, "files": { "count": 1, "enabled": true, "entries": { "June 2019 MASTER_Ngugi.pdf": { "checksum": "md5:7f706c8b27290b2c13f5b86e5ed25ffc", "ext": "pdf", "id": "ffc2979e-9331-4245-9e15-21b4c223bbd9", "key": "June 2019 MASTER_Ngugi.pdf", "metadata": null, "mimetype": "application/pdf", "size": 231687 } }, "order": [], "total_bytes": 231687 }, "id": "3264995", "is_draft": false, "is_published": true, "links": { "access": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/access", "access_links": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/access/links", "access_request": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/access/request", "access_users": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/access/users", "archive": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/files-archive", "archive_media": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/media-files-archive", "communities": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/communities", "communities-suggestions": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/communities-suggestions", "doi": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3264995", "draft": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/draft", "files": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/files", "latest": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/versions/latest", "latest_html": "https://zenodo.org/records/3264995/latest", "media_files": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/media-files", "parent": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264994", "parent_doi": "https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.3264994", "parent_html": "https://zenodo.org/records/3264994", "requests": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/requests", "reserve_doi": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/draft/pids/doi", "self": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995", "self_doi": "https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.3264995", "self_html": "https://zenodo.org/records/3264995", "self_iiif_manifest": "https://zenodo.org/api/iiif/record:3264995/manifest", "self_iiif_sequence": "https://zenodo.org/api/iiif/record:3264995/sequence/default", "versions": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/3264995/versions" }, "media_files": { "count": 0, "enabled": false, "entries": {}, "order": [], "total_bytes": 0 }, "metadata": { "creators": [ { "person_or_org": { "family_name": "Mridha", "given_name": "Shibaji", "name": "Mridha, Shibaji", "type": "personal" } } ], "description": "
This paper explores the trauma inflicted by the colonial settlement on the
\neveryday, innocent colonized people as depicted in Weep Not, Child, tracing
\nthe horrifying consequences it triggers in the lives of victims both on a personal
\nand allegorical level. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o soulfully recreates the turbulent
\ntime of social and political upheaval of colonized Kenya in the 1950s.
\nThis politically charged novel, published after two years of Kenya’s independence
\nin 1964, foregrounds the traumatic journey of a young boy, Njoroge,
\nagainst the backdrop of the Mau Mau revolution that was organized against
\nthe white colonial government. His choice of surrendering to death is his
\ndelayed response to the catastrophic events, which eventually exposes the
\nheart of darkness of the colonial entanglement. In this regard, maintaining
\nthe recent postcolonial tendency of decolonizing the trauma theory, I argue
\nthat Njoroge’s personal trauma echoes the collective trauma of Kenya in the
\nsense that they both suffer from paranoia and violence in a critical time when
\nthey were in a quest for an identity. In addition, in connection with another
\nmonumental work Something Torn and New: Towards an African Renaissance
\nby Ngugi, I intend to discuss the significance of the agency of collective
\ntrauma in a postcolonial context in an attempt to both historicize and
\nempower trauma. Finally, this paper goes on to argue how the collective trauma
\nof colonial/postcolonial experience can be translated into a constructive
\nforce in an act of re-membering and revisiting the traumatic past.