NARRATIVIZING MEMORY AND IDENTITY: A LINGUOCULTURAL APPROACH TO GURNAH'S FICTION

This article offers a comprehensive linguocultural analysis of the interrelated categories of memory and identity in the works of Abdulrazak Gurnah. Drawing on the novels Paradise, By the Sea the study investigates how postcolonial experience, migration, and psychological subjectivity are discursively constructed through language. Adopting a linguocultural and interpretive framework, the research examines the ways in which individual and collective memory function as key semiotic resources in the formation and negotiation of cultural identity. Particular attention is paid to the narrative strategies, lexical choices, and symbolic structures that encode trauma, displacement, and nostalgia within the postcolonial condition. The findings suggest that in Gurnah’s fiction, memory operates not merely as a retrospective narrative device but as an ontological and discursive mechanism through which fragmented identities are articulated and reconfigured. Thus, linguistic representation becomes a crucial medium for reconstructing subjectivity in contexts marked by colonial legacy and migratory experience.