Nation Formation, trauma of war and genocide in the Literature of Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan

Abstract

This study examines the representation of nation formation in the background of the trauma of wars and genocide in selected novels from Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. The selected novels convey the trauma of the survivors from a first-hand experience of war and genocide and the writers’ attempt at the imagination of nation formation in the aftermath of societal fragmentation. Three of the novels studied namely: The Hyenas Wedding by Rusimbi, Weep Not Refugee by Toyi and Baho by Rugero were written by authors from these territories while the other three: The Mark by Deal, The Humanitarian by Caraway and Broken Memory by Combres are by foreign nationals. The objectives of this study are to analyze the writers’ imaginative representation of nation formation from the trauma of ethnically instigated war and genocide; to examine the narrative techniques used by writers and, to examine the vision/s of nation formation projected in the selected novels. A qualitative library based research was undertaken. This entailed a close reading of the data contained in the selected texts and involved a critical evaluation of the material therein to examine how the writers grapple with the representation of nation formation amidst the traumas that have fragmented the social bonds and critically curtailed the capacities of these societies to function harmoniously. For the reason that traumatic events are extreme and they resist fictionalization, they present challenges to the writers in terms of the strategies of representation. The study adopted an eclectic approach to theory that includes aspects of postcolonial theories, trauma theory, semiotics and Benedict Anderson’s ideas of nationalism and imagination of the nation. Because the selected texts in this study deal with postcolonial traumatic experiences, their readings and analysis were guided by trauma theory. Semiotics guided the reading of the meanings created by signs and images used as vehicles of expression in the representation of traumatic experiences that resist representation through language. The study used Anderson’s proposals to analyze the nature of the writers’ imaginative representation of past traumatic experiences for the stimulation of social interconnections in previously fragmented relations. The study managed to apply trauma theory within the framework of post-colonial readings on the narration of nation formation as an additional trajectory to the existing models on the analysis of nation formation in the East African novel. The study concluded that the writers have used diverse narrative strategies in testifying to the past to create memories essential for creating social affiliations in the survivors. Overall, the visions projected by the writers about the potential for the realization of nationhood in these societies are diverse. The findings add to the pool of existing academic knowledge on the narration of nations of trauma. Future research could examine the representation of nation formation from the perspective of writers whose focus is on the offspring of the survivors with no direct personal experience of these atrocities. Such categories of survivors only have a family memory or have post-memories of these experiences created by survivors’ testimonies or other processes.