Representing the Politics of Memory: Narrative Strategies in Forna’s The Devil that Danced on the Water (2002) and The Memory of Love (2010)

Abstract

This article examines how Aminatta Forna manipulates point of view to represent the politics of memory in her memoir, The Devil that Danced on the Water (2002), and her novel, The Memory of Love (2010). It proceeds from the view that memories of events and experiences differ depending on the point of view from which these events and experiences are perceived and consequently remembered (Fernandez-Armesto 1995, 26). Memories are also suppressed or privileged depending on their nature and their usefulness to the remembering subjects in the present and the future (Wade et al. 2002). It is this act of privileging, differing, ‘deferring’ and competing memories related to the same event or experience that in this article constitutes the politics of memory. As part of the examination of Forna’s use of point of view, this article scrutinizes the remembered memories in relation to the remembering subjects to establish whether there is in Forna’s representation, a relationship between the nature of memory and the impulse or decision to forget or to remember, and whether, again in Forna’s representation there are accurate or true memories and inaccurate or false memories or a deliberate attempt to ‘defer’ some aspects of remembering and memories.