Hamlet and Black Earth Rising: Returns to the Roots

Abstract

AbstractBlack Earth Rising includes only one brief reference to Hamlet, albeit in a decisive moment concerned with unearthing the covered grave of forgotten parents whom the protagonist has only just begun to remember. It is thus a highly self-reflexive moment in which the link to a hitherto neglected antecedent is introduced, a link that invites viewers to reconsider the action of Black Earth Rising in the light of Hamlet. This chapter discusses how the series translocates Hamlet’s detection of a hidden political crime to post-genocide Rwanda in its international relations. It focuses on the tension between remembrance, revenge, and reconciliation, on the ghostly apparitions of the dead father, on the different endings of the revenge tragedy and the series, and on the meta-adaptational plant imagery in Black Earth Rising.