ABSTRACT
Deploying trauma as a category for understanding literature began in earnest in the mid-1990s, and it has been significantly shaped by the experiences and intellectual traditions of Western Europe. While literary trauma theory has recently taken into account non-Western experience and postcolonial literary texts, we need to move beyond pluralism to ask what those non-Western experiences and texts contain that might alter and enrich our understanding of trauma. This book discusses the relevance of trauma theory for African literatures, making the case that a thoughtful application of trauma theory in the African context is a productive exercise that will not necessarily resolve all the inherent problems of trauma theory, but that African literatures can nevertheless offer fresh insights and a deeper appreciation of the nature of trauma and of the possibility for post-traumatic transformation.
