Navigating Distorted Territories: “Trauma, Memory and History” in Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the traumatic history associated with Afghanistan, one of the most war-torn places in the world, through the analysis of Tony Kushner’s remarkable play Homebody/Kabul (2001) in the light of “trauma and memory” studies. Being a Brechtian- politicized playwright who aims to engage the reader/spectator in other people’s sufferings, Kushner dramatizes the traumatic events that the Afghans have witnessed and experienced during many years of colonialization and their aftermath through the lens of a British, middle-class housewife and the eyes of other Afghan characters. In Homebody/Kabul, Kushner seeks to engage the Western reader in the trauma of the subjugated “Other” by navigating from one place to another, endeavoring to reflect on the historical, political and traumatic reality of a blighted territory.