Postcolonial trauma and subjectivity in Ghassan Kanafani and Pramoedya Ananta Toer: A comparison

Postcolonial literature preserves the memory of colonial suffering, yet cross-regional comparisons of how it represents trauma remain scarce. This study examines the representation of colonial trauma and postcolonial subjectivity in Ghassan Kanafani’s ‘Āid ilā Haifa (Returning to Haifa) and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Cerita dari Blora (Stories from Blora), two works that document colonial experience in different geopolitical regions but are rarely compared. Using a qualitative-comparative design based on close reading, Cathy Caruth’s trauma framework, and Edward Said’s postcolonial framework, the study investigates how the two works depict trauma and negotiate postcolonial subjectivity. Three findings emerged. First, the characters of both works exhibit trauma through belatedness, intrusion, avoidance, hyperarousal, and aporia. Second, the formation of subjectivity prompts distinct responses: Kanafani shows the diaspora’s resurgence of active agency and political consciousness, whereas Pramoedya shows the existential paralysis of the ordinary people, who remain estranged despite independence. Third, both writers use narrative to rework history and to foreground the perspective of the oppressed through counter-narrative.