Memory as Homeland: Trauma, Hybridity, and the Diasporic Psyche in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children 

Feba Lijin¹, Dr. Sushil kansal²

¹Ph.D. Scholar, Desh Bhagath University, Punjab.

²Associate Professor, Desh Bhagath University, Punjab. AP.English@deshbhagatuniversity.in

Abstract

This paper explores the complex interplay of memory, trauma, and diasporic identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Situating the discussion within postcolonial theory and psychoanalytic criticism, the study examines how memory operates as both a psychic wound and a narrative strategy in the formation of fragmented selves. In Rushdie’s novel, national history and personal memory intertwine through Saleem Sinai’s unreliable narration, revealing the psychological consequences of colonial rupture and post-independence disillusionment. Similarly, Adichie’s Americanah portrays migration as a deeply interior experience, where racial consciousness, nostalgia, and displacement reshape the protagonist’s sense ofidentity. Drawing upon Homi Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, Freud’s theory of repression, and trauma studies, this paper argues that diaspora is not merely geographical relocation but a condition of psychological fragmentation. Memory becomes a substitute homeland, an imaginative space where fractured identities are negotiated and reassembled. Through narrative reconstruction, both authors demonstrate how storytelling itself functions as a therapeutic act, enabling subjects to confront cultural trauma and reclaim agency. Ultimately, diasporic literature emerges as a site where the human psyche resists historical erasure and redefines belonging beyond territorial boundaries.

Keywords: Diaspora, Memory, Trauma, Hybridity, Postcolonial identity.