• editor.aipublications@gmail.com
  • Track Your Paper
  • Contact Us
  • ISSN: 2582-9823
NAAS Journal 2026

International Journal Of Language, Literature And Culture(IJLLC)

  1. Home
  2. IJLLC
  3. Vol-5,Issue-3, May - June 2025
  4. Beyond the Void- Postcolonial Trauma and the Strategy of Silence in African and South Asian Literature

For Authors

Author Guidelines Peer Review Process Plagiarism Policy Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement Editorial Board Call for Papers Publication Process Topics of Interest Track Status of Paper

Issues

Current Archive

Downloads

Download Certificate Paper Format Copyright Form

Indexing and Abstracting

aipublications Neliti aipublications google scholar aipublications Neliti

Beyond the Void- Postcolonial Trauma and the Strategy of Silence in African and South Asian Literature

Olivia Siby


International Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (IJLLC), Vol-5,Issue-3, May - June 2025, Pages 15-18, 10.22161/ijllc.5.3.4

Download | Downloads : 12 | Total View : 1271

Article Info: Received: 08 Apr 2025, Received in revised form: 03 May 2025, Accepted: 08 May 2025, Available online: 15 May 2025

Cite this Article: APA | ACM | Chicago | Harvard | IEEE | MLA | Vancouver | Bibtex

Share

This paper examines the role of silence and absence as literary strategies in African and South Asian postcolonial fiction. Focusing on works by Chinua Achebe, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Arundhati Roy, and Bapsi Sidhwa, the study demonstrates how these narrative techniques express trauma, resist colonial discourse, and reassert indigenous epistemologies. Drawing from postcolonial, trauma, and feminist theories, the analysis positions silence not as passivity, but as an active, insurgent gesture that reclaims narrative space and complicates the politics of voice and representation.

silence, absence, postcolonial literature, trauma, resistance, African fiction, South Asian fiction, gender, identity, decolonisation

[1] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1958. Reprint, New York: Anchor Books, 1994.
[2] Boehmer, Elleke. Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.
[3] Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
[4] Butalia, Urvashi. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.
[5] Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
[6] Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. 1988. Reprint, London: The Women's Press, 1994.
[7] Gikandi, Simon. The Novel in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
[8] Irele, Abiola. The African Experience in Literature and Ideology. London: Heinemann, 1981.
[9] LaCapra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
[10] Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
[11] Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: Heinemann, 1986.
[12] Pandey, Gyanendra. Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
[13] Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. 1997. Reprint, New York: Random House, 1998.
[14] Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
[15] Sidhwa, Bapsi. Cracking India. 1991. Reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
[16] Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271-313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

aipub drij aipub scribd internet archive research bib scilit indiana tynd rootindexing aipub pdfsr aipub cite factor aipub issuu aipub wikicfp aipub google aipub slideshare aipub reddit aipub digg aipub tumblr aipub plurk aipub yudu Active Search Results
© 2021 AI Publications | All Rights Reserved