'Emergents' of Violence

Obala F. Musumba

'Emergents' of Violence: Nuruddin Farah’s Representation of the Child in Conflict Zones

ISBN 978-3-86821-975-3, 212 S., kt., € 30,00 (2023)

(LuKA - Literaturen und Kulturen Afrikas, Bd. 16)

This book critically analyses the representation of the child character in Nuruddin Farah’s Past Imperfect trilogy which consists of the novels Links, Knots and Crossbones. The book focuses on Farah’s fictionalization of the child character in a violent Somalia by highlighting the nexus between violence, childhood and the postcolonial nation as represented in Farah’s art of novel writing. By reading the current state of a split-up Somalia through postcolonial lenses, the child is being centred as a symbol for entangled conflicts, identity constructions and projections into future. The book also engages selected novels by a younger generation of authors illuminating the plight of the child subject in times of war in Eastern African states such as Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. It reveals that the violent conflicts experienced in this region mediate the emergence of an ambivalent child of violence; a child who bears the brunt of violence and also unleashes violence upon the society. This child of violence is thus critical in defining the kind of society that is responsible for her/his emergence. S/he portends a unique form of hopelessness in the society and by contrast also as a ray of hope for the reconstruction of a new state that would be free of violence and that appeals to everyone.

Obala F. Musumba holds a PhD degree from The Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin. Currently, he is a lecturer of Comparative Literature at Bomet University College in Kenya.

Buchvorschau / Inhaltsverzeichnis (pdf)