Rereading Violence and Trauma in Post-Conflict Societies: Aminatta Forna’s Happiness

Extract

Happiness explores the themes of violence and trauma as one of its fundamental concerns. In this regard, the character and role of Dr. Attila Asare, a Ghanaian psychiatrist, is crucial to understanding Forna’s theorizations on trauma and advancement of a new hypothesis on its manifestations and possibilities of recovery. In laying the foundation for the articulation of his new theory of trauma, Attila gives us a window into violence in two different geographical settings: Bosnia in the winter of 1995 and Sierra Leone in 1995. It is significant that both wars occurred at about the same time and that they were both notorious for the nature and extent of the carnage that characterize them.