Narrating the Margins: Trauma, Loneliness, and Identity in Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone

Name of Author : Raka Sharma

Abstract: Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone (2006) offers a compelling representation of life in Nagaland under conditions of insurgency and militarisation. This paper examines the interrelated themes of trauma, loneliness, and marginalisation through the frameworks of postcolonial theory, trauma studies, and subaltern discourse. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Michel Foucault, and Cathy Caruth, the study argues that loneliness in Ao’s narratives is not merely psychological but structurally produced through political violence, cultural erasure, and gendered oppression. Through close textual analysis of selected stories such as “The Last Song,” “The Curfew Man,” and “An Old Man Remembers,” the paper demonstrates how Ao transforms silence into narrative and marginalisation into resistance. Ultimately, the study positions Ao’s work as a significant intervention in Indian English literature and Northeast writing, foregrounding subaltern experience and redefining the margins as sites of identity, memory, and resilience.

Keywords : Trauma, Loneliness, and Identity

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