The Construction of Fragile Identities: African Women’s Narratives of Post-colonial Trauma in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions and Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Abstract

The paper explores how post-colonial trauma is depicted in African women’s literature. It examines the close connection between historical colonial trauma and the identities of African women in Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. The two authors act as literary historians addressing traumatic histories to rewrite and reframe the portrayal of African women in a global context. The paper examines how colonial and postcolonial traumas influence the identities of female characters in these texts. However, the female characters will be examined not in isolation but through their relationships with indigenous males who impose fractured identities on their women and children. By highlighting the connections between recalling traumatic events and promoting community healing, the paper underscores the significance of a specific post-colonial feminist trauma theory in understanding these texts. It further proposes that this approach helps reveal how women’s fiction articulates and creates pathways for collective healing from traumas unique to the experiences of African women in post-colonial settings.