Rethinking Memory in Valerie Cuthbert's The Great Siege of Fort Jesus

¹This paper was first presented as “Rethinking Memory in Valerie Cuthbert's The Great Siege of Fort Jesus” at the Researching African Literatures Conference, Pwani University, in Kilifi, Kenya, 11–13 December 2014.

Abstract

This article explores memory as remembered and re-presented by Valerie Cuthbert (1970) in The Great Siege of Fort Jesus: an Historical Novel. In the article, I reflect on the significance of memory in the novel as agency that foregrounds excluded pasts in the making of the narrative of coastal Kenya society. Also, of great significance in this study is how we can read and re-member suppressed memories in a text. This study further interrogates the fluidity of memory in literary works. By so doing, I explore different ways through which it is possible to understand how hegemonic groups attempt to expediently obliterate the memories of the oppressed/marginalized and the ultimate impact on the social and political fabric of particular communities. I also consider how Cuthbert exploits memory through the narrative's potential to re-awaken and re-inscribe the violent ruptures of Mombasa in particular, and Kenya at large. In this case, I conceive memory not just as a repository for the past, but as that which possesses renewal and resurrection.

Keywords:

• Memory
• Fort Jesus
• siege
• Mombasa
• Portuguese
• Swahili coast

Notes

¹ This paper was first presented as “Rethinking Memory in Valerie Cuthbert's The Great Siege of Fort Jesus” at the Researching African Literatures Conference, Pwani University, in Kilifi, Kenya, 11–13 December 2014.