Askari, colonial encounters, and postcolonial war commemoration inAfterlivesby Abdulrazak Gurnah

This article offers an analysis of the representation of the Askari in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s 2020 novel Afterlives. I approach the war and colonialism as interconnected factors and argue that Gurnah contests the myth of the Askari as savage mercenaries devoted to their German officers. By retracing Gurnah’s portraits of African protagonists, the article shows the different motivations and choices of the Askari before, during and after the First World War. The figure of Ilyas throws into relief the pitfalls of colonial modernity, as well as the disturbing continuities of violence between the colony and the concentration camp. By contrast, Hamza’s intimate relationship with a German in the Schutztruppe serves to explore an alternative history of emotions between colonial soldiers and their officers. The article goes on to examine Gurnah’s representation of war trauma, the phantomatic presence/absence of the Askari in collective memory, and the conflicted ethics of postcolonial war commemoration.