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What would it mean to read postcolonial writings under the prism of trauma? Ogaga Ifowodo tackles these questions through a psycho-social examination of the lingering impact of imperialist domination, resulting in a refreshing complement to the cultural-materialist studies that dominate the field.

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Introduction 1. ´Into the Zone of Occult Instability´: Frantz Fanon, Post-Colonial Trauma and Identity 2. Identity or Death! The Trauma of Life and Continuity in Wole Soyinka´s Death and the King´s Horseman 3. Experience as the Best Teacher: Trauma, Reference and Realism in Toni Morrison´s Beloved 4. Trauma and Experience: LaCapra´s Caveat to Realists 5. Trauma and Literary Theory 6. ´But How Will You Know Me?´ Trauma, Memory and Meaning 7. Reference as Epistemic Access: Trauma´s Horizon of Meaning 8. Conclusion: Specifying Morrison´s Locus of Referentiality 9. ´Till the Word and the Wound Fit´: History, Memory, and Healing of the Post-Colonial Body-Politic in Derek Walcott´s Omeros 10. A Free-Floating Wound? Hybridity, Social Complexity and Identity 11. ´You all see what it´s like without roots in this world?´Acting-Out and Working-Through Trauma 12. ´I Felt Every Wound Pass´: From African Babble through Greek Manure to a Language that Carries its Cure 13. Conclusion: Reading Postcolonial History as a History of Trauma

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"Ogaga Ifowodo´s book is boldly ambitious in coverage and outstanding in theoretical and scholarly density. There is no question about it: this is a major contribution to African diaspora postcolonial literary and cultural studies." - Tejumola Olaniyan, Louise Durham Mead Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

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Ogaga Ifowodo is an assistant professor of English at Texas State University

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