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 (FernandezArmesto 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.
