The Cartography of Broken Promises: Colonialism, Migration, and Displacement in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise

Abstract

This paper examines the interlocking dynamics of colonialism, migration, and displacement in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise (1994). The novel reconfigures East Africa’s encounter with German colonial rule through the bildungsroman of its protagonist, Yusuf. Rather than affirming narratives of adventure or self-realization, Gurnah foregrounds economic bondage, psychological fragmentation, and the contested nature of belonging. The analysis demonstrates that displacement in Paradise operates on three interconnected levels: geographical relocation from the interior to the coast, economic displacement through debt-peonage that transforms human relations into commodified instruments, and psychological dislocation as Yusuf becomes suspended between Swahili cultural traditions and the encroaching colonial order. Through close textual analysis, the paper argues that Gurnah employs silence, fragmented temporality, and the strategic absence of European characters to critique both indigenous systems of exploitation and the brutality of German occupation. The novel offers not merely a record of colonial trauma but a nuanced meditation on agency within structures of unfreedom, culminating in Yusuf’s ambiguous decision to join the German askaris—an act that resists facile categorization as either collaboration or resistance.