Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is the author of the critically acclaimed book, A Human Being Died that Night: A Story of Forgiveness, which won the Alan Paton Award and the Christopher Award. She is co-author of Narrating our Healing: Perspectives on Healing Trauma. She served on the Human Rights Violations Committee of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Currently she is Professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town. Chris van der Merwe is the author of various books and articles on South African and Dutch Literature. His books include Barriers, Stereotypes and the Changing of Values in Afrikaans Literature and Strangely Familiar: South African Narratives on Town and Countryside, which he edited. He is co-author of Narrating our Healing – Perspectives on Working through Trauma. He received the Book Journalist of the Year award in 1994 for his radio talks on South African Literature. Currently he is Associate Professor of Afrikaans and Dutch Literature at the University of Cape Town.'This is a very important and timely book for everyone concerned with a holistic approach to justice and peace. The significance of memory, truth recovery, and forgiveness cannot be underestimated. This book of essays promises to stimulate a very necessary interdisciplinary debate concerning trauma, apologies and healing.'—Alex Boraine, Chairperson and founder of the International Centre for Transitional Justice, author of A Country Unmasked: Inside South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Oxford, 2001). "Although volumes have been written about South Africa's truth and reconciliation process, high-quality, analytical work has been relatively sparse. Until now! In breadth, depth, and generality, Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness is an unparalleled collection of research papers. This is not a book about South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission; nor even about South Africa itself. Rather, the various chapters explore and analyze fundamental processes of memory, healing, forgiveness, and memorialization of the past. This volume is an extraordinarily useful contribution to our understanding of truth and reconciliation throughout the world." —James Gibson, is the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government in the Department of Political Science at Washington University. He is the author of Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile A Divided Nation? (Russell Sage, 2004).'This excellent collection of essays provides us with thoughtful distinctions between forgiveness and apology, atonement and moral repair, and reconciliation and social reconstruction. These distinctions themselves add nuance to what has become a growing and essential debate about how societies that have been torn apart by horrendous, violent conflict, can collectively engage in the process of healing and reconstruction. The essays engage the growing terrain of trauma theory …. The authors, however, not only look at social institutions but also at representations in art and literature, which enhances the rich quality of the text. Moreover, several of the authors, writing about reconciliation in post colonies, particularly in Africa, address the need to develop African ethical ideals, such as Ubuntu, as crucially important in the growing literature on transitional justice. This book will be a much-welcomed text in departments ranging from sociology, anthropology, law and comparative literature. '—Drucilla Cornell is the Chair of Customary Law, Indigenous Values and Dignity Jurisprudence and co-director of the uBuntu Project at the University of Cape Town's Law Faculty.