The Paradigm of Silence in Diasporic Fiction: The Case of Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abstract

Silence occupies a central position in diasporic fiction, where experiences of displacement, trauma, and fractured belonging often resist direct articulation. In Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Admiring Silence (1996) and The Last Gift (2011), silence emerges as a complex narrative strategy through which migrant subjects negotiate loss, fragmented identities, and postcolonial shame. The two novels portray characters whose lives are shaped by omissions, fabricated stories, and selective acts of remembrance, revealing how traumatic memory remains suspended between remembering and forgetting. In Gurnah’s fiction, storytelling and reticence coexist, while the creation of imaginary homelands exposes the emotional precariousness of migrant existence. Ultimately, the tension between what is narrated and what remains unsaid reveals how postcolonial belonging and memory are continually reshaped by trauma, shame, and omission.