RECLAIMING A SELF INTERTWINED IN THE EXIGENCIES OF AN UNWRITTEN HISTORY IN HINER SALEEM’S MY FATHER’S RIFLE

LOLAV M. HASSAN ALHAMID

LOLAV M. HASSAN ALHAMID Dept. Of English, College Of Languages, University Of Duhok, Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Keywords: Kurdish History, Kurdish Nationalism, Memory, Re-writing, Self, Identity

Abstract

Throughout history, war and oppression and their painful physical and psychological effects on the people have inspired the perspective and works of many authors around the world. This study identifies and explores the ways in which Kurdish writers reflect such trends in their narratives. Adopting Hiner Saleem’s My Father’s Rifle (2004) as an expository example, the article studies the attempts of a Kurdish writer to construct a subaltern narrative as a means by which to challenge the acts of silencing and marginalization imposed on his people by the different hegemonic powers. Saleem’s novel portrays characters whose lives express the devastation, the pain, and the struggle of a nation torn by oppression and colonization. Situating the narrative in a broader political and historical context, the writer writes from a marginal position and endeavours to give voice to a community repressed by traditional discriminatory historiographies. In his project of reclaiming an identity that has not been recorded, the writer is forced to go back in time to a past where he can search for traces that link his characters to ancestral roots. In so doing, he represents the characters’ quest for identity and selfhood and their urgent need to reclaim their past in order to create a meaningful present.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

 Ahmetbeyzade, C. (2004) Struggling to Be Kurdish Diasporic Legacy of Violent History. PhD diss., Binghamton University State University o f New York.
 Allison, Ch. (2005) Kurdish Autobiography, Memoir and Novel: Ereb Shemo and His Successors. Studies on Persianate Societies, Vol.109, No.4, 97-118.
 Choudhary, M. (2011). Representation of the Subaltern in Toni Morriso. PhD diss. Maharishi Markandeshwar University.
 Ghosh, N. (2012). Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Subaltern Study. The Criterion: An International Journal in English, Vol. 3, No.3, 1-5.
 Gugelberger, G. and Kearney, M. (1991). Voices for the Voiceless: Testimonial Literature in Latin America.” Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 18, No. 3, 3-14.
 Henderson, M. (1999). Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Remembering the Body as a Historical Text in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: a Case Book, ed. William L. Andrews et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Izady, M. (1996). Manifesto of the Kurdish People. Kurdish Life, 20, 15-31.
 ----, M. (1995). The Current State of Kurdish Historiography. Kurdish Life, 16, 1-10.
 Lowder, D. (2010). My Father’s Rifle: An Analysis. ESSAI, Vol. 8, No. 26, 94-96.
 Makombe, R. (2011). Breaking Silences: Voicing Subaltern Consciousness in Mtutuzeli Nyoka’s I Speak to the Silent. Otherness: Essays and Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1-17.
 Mantra, R. (2010). Speaking Subaltern: A Comparative Study of African American and Dalit/ Indian Literatures. PhD diss. University of South Florida.
 Saleem, H. (2005). My Father’s Rifle, trans. Catherine Temerson. London: Atlantic Books.
 White, H. (2005). Introduction: Historical Fiction, Fictional History, and Historical Reality. Rethinking History, Vol. 9, No.3, 147-157.
 Yudice, G. (1991). Testimonio and Postmodernism. Latin American Perspectives,Vol.18,No.3,15-31.