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ABSTRACT
This article reads Fadia Faqir’s My Name is Salma (2007) as a narrative of insidious trauma. The text’s oscillation between a violent past and a confusing present, and the mournful disposition of the narrative perspective invite questions about the role of memory in the aftermath of violence, and the link between migration and psychic trauma. And while it is not difficult to understand the protagonist’s post-traumatic response to her pre-migration history of violence and cruelty, her confused reaction to the demands of the experience of migration does not fit in with classical, event-based models of trauma, which revolve around the notion of a singular, catastrophic event. Salma’s experience as an immigrant, I would suggest, is best understood in light of recent postcolonial revisions of major creeds of trauma theory, particularly the idea that minor, quotidian acts of violence on the psyche could trigger a post-traumatic response.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Al Maleh, 15.
2 Andermahr, 500–5.
3 Root, 229–65.
4 Brown, 132.
5 Ibid., 133.
6 Rothberg, 225.
7 Craps, 4.
8 Visser, 11.
9 White et al., 12.
10 Ibid., 15.
11 Al Maleh, IX.
12 Ibid., 13.
13 El-Enany, 185.
14 Nash, 20.
15 Moore, 4.
16 White et al., 6.
17 Moore, 3.
18 Chambers, 58.
19 Faqir, My Name is Salma, 15 (hereafter this text will be referred to as MNS).
20 Eng and Han, 680.
21 Ahmed, 17.
22 MNS, 18.
23 Brown, 132.
24 Nagel, 258–87.
25 MNS, 6.
26 Ibid., 8.
27 Ibid., 14.
28 Hermans, 14.
29 MNS, 131.
30 Ibid., 64.
31 Ibid., 65.
32 Ibid., 32.
33 Ibid., 32.
34 Eng and Han, 680.
35 Guerin, 185.
36 Faqir, Pillars of Salt, 131. (emphasis added)
37 MNS, 65.
38 Adam, 1–23.
39 MNS, 106.
40 Ibid., 65.
41 MNS, 31.
42 Brown, 100–12.
43 Berry, 5–68.
44 MNS, 36.
45 Ibid., 31.
46 MNS, 30.
47 Ibid., 64.
48 Quoted in Bürgy, 65–73.
49 Bürgy, 65–73.
50 Ibid., 9.
51 MNS, 6.
52 Bhabha, 128. (original emphases)
53 MNS, 64.
54 Stocks, 71–92.
55 MNS, 37. (Author’s emphasis).
56 Ibid., 31.
57 Ibid., 75.
58 Ibid., 63.
59 Ancellin.
60 Chambers, 59.
61 Faqir, Pillars of Salt, 80.
62 MNS, 36.
63 Ibid., 129.
64 Ibid.,136. Author’s emphasis.
65 Ibid., 17.
66 Ibid., 63.
67 Hall, 2.
68 Ibid., 4.
69 In an early passage, Salma relates how after one of her cleaning routines, she looks in the mirror and is struck by the ‘fractured reflection’ she sees: “A thin olive-skinned fractured reflection, with big brown eyes, a crooked nose and long dark thick frizzy hair, looked back at me in the broken mirror. If I did not know me I would have said that I was Salina, whole and healthy.” MNS, 6.
70 Ibid., 17.
71 Quoted in Chambers, 60.
72 MNS, 42.
73 Ibid., 11.
74 Ibid., 17.
75 MNS, 15.
76 Hall, 4.
77 MNS, 8.
78 Ibid., 36.
79 Ibid., 149.
80 Kaplan, xvii.
81 MNS, 108.
82 Ibid.
83 Fanon, 48.
84 Faqir, “Stories from the House of Songs,” 53.
85 MNS, 22.
86 Cariello, 334.
87 Soueif, 30.
88 MNS, 48.
89 MNS, 59.
90 MNS., 48.
91 Ibid., 42.
92 Ibid., 116.
93 Ibid., 20.
94 Ibid., 116
95 Ibid., 93.
96 Majaj, 274.
97 Aboulela, 20.
98 Appadurai and Breckenridge.
99 Ang, 33.
100 MNS, 9.
101 Ibid., 9.
102 Ibid., 16.
103 Ibid., 159.
104 Ibid., 189.
105 Forter, 259–85.
106 Ibid., 259–85.