Author(s): Manali Kajal, Dr. Rashmi Verma

Abstract: Dominant groups have often written official histories to justify their power. Those in power shape versions of the past that silence local voices and marginalize their lived experience. In this sense, the act of memory brings counter-perspectives that challenge the hegemonic ideology. Michael Foucault’s concept of counter-memory describes an oppositional engagement with the past. It opposes the official version of historical continuity. However, it does not reject history but reconstruct it by looking from alternative perspectives. In Afterlives (2020), Abdulrazak Gurnah provides a counter-hegemonic account of the East African history. The novel restores the silenced lives of individuals and communities subjected to German colonial violence. Through the intersecting lives of Khalifa, Hamza, Afiya, and Ilyas, the novel shows the brutality, displacement, and trauma caused by German rule in Tanganyika. The story focuses on ordinary people and their survival amid suffering. In this way, the novel resists colonial representations. Through a close textual analysis of the novel, this paper argues that Gurnah presents counter-memory both a narrative practice and an ethical act. Ultimately, it becomes a refusal on behalf of the dead and the dispossessed to let their histories disappear.

Keywords: counter-memory, displacement, colonial violence, historical memory, identity, storytelling, trauma.

Article Info: Received: 26 May 2026; Received in revised form: 24 Jun 2026; Accepted: 27 Jun 2026; Available online: 30 Jun 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.113.95