ABSTRACT
The atrocities of a genocide should be measured not only by the number of massacred, injured, or displaced human beings, but also by the traumatic memories haunting the minds and daunting the lives of both the survivors and their descendants. No matter how accurate the calculation of the death toll or causalities is, the number of those traumatized by the genocidal memories of killing, burning, torture, burial, rape, or escape would always remain a mystery. Undergoing or witnessing brutal physical violations does not only scar survivors’ bodies and psyches, but it also encapsulates them in a loop of death wherein oblivion is an unattainable luxury and survival is an unforgiven guilt. Hence, rather than investigating the accuracy of the statistics which report the killing of almost half a million and the displacement of three million human beings since the start of the conflict in Darfur in 2003, this chapter will focus on how the lifelong catastrophic impacts of the first genocide in the 21st century are perceived and articulated in Emtithal Mahmoud’s first published volume, Sisters’ Entrance (2018). This chapter will also investigate how enacting embodied memories can be the means for scrubbing personal and collective wounds, redeeming distorted identities, reconstructing the disrupted self, and sewing it back into the social fabric of the present.
