Reimagining the Past: Trauma, Memory, and Nostalgia in Select Partition Narratives

Abstract

This research paper explores the psychological, cultural, and narrative aftermath of the 1947 Partition of India through Kamila Shamsie’s novel Salt and Saffron, situating it within trauma and memory studies. It integrates theoretical perspectives on collective memory, postmemory, vernacular trauma, and routine violence as developed by scholars such as Maurice Halbwachs, Marianne Hirsch, Ananya Kabir, and Gyanendra Pandey to examine how inherited trauma is transmitted across generations through myth, silence, and storytelling. Through close textual analysis, the paper demonstrates how Shamsie encodes historical trauma into family legends such as the “not-quite-twins,” and how diasporic characters like Aliya navigate identity crises shaped by fragmented genealogies and cultural estrangement.

Textual quotations highlight how the novel’s narrative form—characterized by nonlinear structure, anecdotal recollection, and matrilineal voices—mirrors the disjointedness of traumatic memory. The study underscores the feminist dimension of memory transmission, particularly through female figures such as Dadi and Mariam, whose silences reflect the gendered burden of Partition. Ultimately, the paper argues that Salt and Saffron functions as a literary archive and counter-memory, challenging nationalist amnesia and emphasizing literature’s role in ethical remembrance. By fusing theory with literary evidence, the study asserts the novel’s capacity to transform inherited trauma into a site of reflection, resistance, and cultural continuity.