Journal of Chaohu University ›› 2024, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (1): 94-100.doi: 10.12152/j.issn.1672-2868.2024.01.013

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Re-mapping Swahili's Space: Smellscape Writing in Gurnah's Paradise

YAN Meng-meng,XU Qing-hong:School of Foreign Studies, Anhui University   

  1. School of Foreign Studies, Anhui University, Hefei Anhui 230601
  • Received:2023-12-18 Online:2024-01-25 Published:2024-06-09

Abstract: Abdulrazak Gurnah remaps Swahili's geographic and political space through smellscapes in Paradise. Regional smellscapes, with the constant movement of Yusuf, the "smell catcher" in the novel, gradually evolve into marked smell coordinates, which ultimately form an olfactory map of Swahili. Olfaction is a spatial-emotional medium that connects places, societies, and emotions, functioning to string people together with events and things. Through smellscape writing, Gurnah presents the spatial geography of Swahili with the depiction of diverse smells, projects the micro politics hidden beneath the code of smells, and the unequal power relations as implied in the smell is resisted by the olfactory subject in a silent way. Gurnah's smellscape writing not only endows the narrative with spatial texture, but also reveals how literature explores and challenges the complex dimensions of socio-political power through the olfactory medium.

Key words: Abdulrazak Gurnah, Paradise, smellscape, space, odor writing

CLC Number: 

  • I561.074