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- Title
Trauma and the Conscript Memoirs of the South African 'Border War'.
- Authors
Doherty, Christo
- Abstract
This paper examines the recent appearance of several 'anti-heroic' memoirs of the South African 'Border War' written by conscripts. The use of the medical diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in these writings is critically examined. The memoirs reveal how difficult it is to articulate memories of contemporary war without drawing on a medical explanation. The South African memoirs also demonstrate the ambiguous role that the diagnosis of PTSD plays in, on the one hand, enabling the authors to speak about their experiences, while, on the other, providing an opportunity for them to distance themselves from the ethical implications of their own involvement in the war. The paper concludes that the tension within the identity of victim-perpetrator is perhaps too easily collapsed into simple victimhood.
- Subjects
POST-traumatic stress disorder in literature; POST-traumatic stress disorder; AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL fiction; MEMOIRS; NGCAYECIBI, War of, South Africa, 1877-1878; FICTION; LITERARY criticism
- Publication
English in Africa, 2015, Vol 42, Issue 2, p25
- ISSN
0376-8902
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.4314/eia.v42i2.2