Between nostalgia and trauma: love, loyalty, and betrayal in Sindiwe Magona’s Chasing the Tails of My Father’s Cattle

Abstract

Sindiwe Magona’s historical novel from 2015 is an impressive fictional
achievement with great narrative complexity. The focus of this essay will be
on the prominent aspect of nostalgia and on the close relation of trauma and
nostalgia in this narrative. While nostalgic memory and traumatic memory
are two different ways of remembering the past, we will show that they also
have much in common by sharing a future-oriented perspective that might
serve the strengthening of the self and the rebuilding of one’s identity. Despite
the critical views of nostalgia in earlier scholarship, more recent publications
have shown that it does not solely boost an escapist or reality-denying attitude
but can also be future-oriented and stimulate approach orientation. Narration
has the potential of playing the role of mediator for both nostalgia and trauma,
and in Sindiwe Magona’s novel, both may be ‘re-lated’ in a positive way.
Although the novel foregrounds the traumatic experience of loss and betrayal,
nostalgia paves the way and opens the door for the significant process of
‘working through’ trauma, so that healing can take place.