Stanlake Samkange’s Insufferable Zimbabwe

Distanciating Trauma from the Novel to Philosophy

Bibliographic Data

ID13015299
AuthorsJeanne‐Marie Jackson (0000-0001-8162-6379, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume8
Issue2
Pages158-176
Publication date2021-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2052-2614 • E-ISSN: 2052-2622
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/pli.2020.37
OpenAlexW3159230279
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

This article theorizes the Zimbabwean writer Stanlake Samkange’s turn from the novel to philosophy as an effort to circumvent the representational pressure exerted by African cultural traumatization. In breaking with the novel form to coauthor a philosophical treatise called Hunhuism or Ubuntuism in the same year as Zimbabwe achieves independence (1980), Samkange advances a comportment-based, deontological alternative to the psychic or subjective model of personhood that anchors trauma theory. Revisiting the progression from his most achieved novel, The Mourned One , to Hunhuism or Ubuntuism thus offers fresh insight into the range of options available to independence-era writers for representing the relationship between African individuality and collectivity. At the same time, it suggests a complementary and overlooked relationship between novelistic and philosophical forms in an African context

Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Independence (probability theory · Personhood · Psychic · Sociology · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Mathematics · Medicine · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Psychology

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