Zadie Smith and Postcolonial Trauma

Name: Zadie Smith and Postcolonial Trauma
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

This monograph analyses Zadie Smith\u2019s White Teeth, On Beauty, NW, The Embassy of Cambodia, and Swing Time as trauma fictions that reveal the social, cultural, historical, and political facets of trauma. Starting with Smith\u2019s humorous critique of psychoanalysis and her definition of original trauma, this volume explores Smith\u2019s challenge of Western theories of trauma and coping, and how her narratives expose the insidiousness of (post)colonial suffering and unbelonging. This book then explores transgenerational trauma, the tensions between remembering and forgetting, multidirectional memory, and the possibilities of the ambiguities and contradictions of the postcolonial and diasporic characters Smith depicts. This analysis discloses Smith\u2019s effort to ethically redefine trauma theory from a postcolonial and decolonial standpoint, reiterates the need to acknowledge and work through colonial histories and postcolonial forms of oppression, and critically reflects on ou.