Identity, Memory, and the Bildungsroman in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Memory of Departure

Abstract

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Memory of Departure (1987) inaugurates one of the most distinctive voices in postcolonial fiction, tracing the psychological and historical fractures that define post-independence East Africa. Through the protagonist Hassan, the novel explores the crisis of identity that arises from the collision between inherited cultural structures and modern aspirations. Unlike the classical European Bildungsroman, which culminates in integration and maturity, Gurnah’s novel stages self-development as disillusionment the painful awakening of a subject denied both belonging and mobility. This paper argues that Memory of Departure transforms the Bildungsroman into a postcolonial allegory of stagnation, where memory, shame, and silence replace progress, and exile becomes the only viable form of consciousness. Drawing upon theories from Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Cathy Caruth, and Marianne Hirsch, this paper examines how trauma, displacement, and collective amnesia structure Gurnah’s early novel as both a psychological and political narrative of survival.