Being and nothingness: trauma, loss and alienation in Tsitsi Dangarembga's 'The book of not'

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Periodical article

Title:	Being and nothingness: trauma, loss and alienation in Tsitsi Dangarembga's 'The book of not'
Author:	Chigwedere, Yuleth
Year:	2016
Periodical:	Journal for Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (ISSN 2026-7215)
Volume:	5
Issue:	2
Pages:	116-125
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zimbabwe
Subjects:	women writers novels African identity
About person:	Tsitsi Dangarembga (1959-)
Abstract:	In this article, the author reveals how Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga's narrative in 'The book of not' echoes Frantz Fanon's 'black skin, white masks' psychology. The protagonist's internalisation of a Eurocentric view of her race and culture culminates in a profound belief in her own inferiority and that of her people. The author uses Laing and Fanon's psychoanalytic theories to portray the protagonist's struggle with her sense of identity and ontological security. The author argues that the subsequent fractured sense of self she experiences affects her to such an extent that shame, guilt and self-negation dominate her mental make-up. What emerges is that the destabilising effect of the trauma of blackness results in a nullification of subjectivity, a total sense of not-being, that causes the protagonist to plummet into the depths of depression. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract]