Metaphors of Colonial Trauma in Abdulrazak Gurnah's By the Sea

Yaling Liu

doi:10.54097/5tank406

Authors

Yaling Liu

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/5tank406

Keywords:

Metaphor, Colonial Trauma, Refugee, Identity

Abstract

By the Sea is one of the masterpieces of Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. Gurnah tells the story of past events from the standpoint of Saleh Omar and Latif Mahmud respectively, methodically advancing the story as if it were a jigsaw puzzle gradually assembling a complete truth. The novel uses a large number of metaphors in its implicit narrative, and through the dialectical tension between characters, events and objects with symbolic metaphorical meanings, it accurately grasps the destructive impact of colonialism on the colonized people and the plight of the refugee community after fleeing from their own country, triggering thoughts on post-colonialism, and calling attention to the colonial issue as well as to the colonial trauma of the alienated community.

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