The Memory of Love
Aminatta Forna, 2010
Grove Atlantic
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802145680
Summary
Winner, 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize-Best Book
In contemporary Sierra Leone, a devastating civil war has left an entire populace with secrets to keep. In the capital hospital, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are beginning to threaten his livelihood.
Elsewhere in the hospital lies a dying man who was young during the country’s turbulent postcolonial years and has stories to tell that are far from heroic.
As past and present intersect in the buzzing city, these men are drawn unwittingly closer by a British psychologist with good intentions, and into the path of one woman at the center of their stories.
A work of breathtaking writing and rare wisdom, The Memory of Love seamlessly weaves together two generations of African life to create a story of loss, absolution, and the indelible effects of the past—and, in the end, the very nature of love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Where—Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK
• Education—University College London
• Awards—Commonwealth Prize-Best Fiction
• Currently—lives in London, England
Aminatta Forna, OBE is a Scottish and Sierra Leonean writer. She is the author of a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water (2003), and four novels: Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2010), The Hired Man (2013), and Happiness (2018). Her novel The Memory of Love was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book in 2011, and was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
Background
Forna was born in Bellshill, Scotland, to a Sierra Leonean father, Mohamed Forna, and a Scottish mother, Maureen Christison. When she was six months old the family traveled to Sierra Leone, where Mohamed Forna worked as a physician. He later became involved in politics and entered government, only to resign citing a growth in political violence and corruption.
Between 1970 and 1973 Dr. Forna was imprisoned and declared an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience. He was hanged on charges of treason in 1975. The events of Forna's childhood and her investigation into the conspiracy surrounding her father's death are the subject of her 2003 memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water.
Forna studied law at University College London and was a Harkness Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.
Early career
Between 1989 and 1999 Forna worked for the BBC, both in radio and television, as a reporter and documentary maker in the spheres of arts and politics. She is also known for her Africa documentaries: Through African Eyes (1995), Africa Unmasked (2002), and The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (2009).
Forna is married to the furniture designer Simon Westcott and lives in south-east London.
In 2013 she assumed a post as Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
Milestones and honors
In addition to her 2011 Commonwealth Prize, Forna received the 2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for Services to Literature in 2017. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
In 2013, Forna served as a judge for The Man Booker International Prize. In 2015 she was a judge for Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award and, in 2017, a judge for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize).
Forna is a board member of the Royal National Theatre and sits on the advisory committee for the Royal Literary Fund, as well as the Caine Prize for African Writing. She continues to champion the work of up-and-coming diverse authors. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/5/2018.)
Book Reviews
[A] luminous tale of passion and betrayal.… [Forna] forces us to see past bland categorizations like "postcolonial African literature," showing that the world we inhabit reaches beyond borders and ripples out through generations. She reminds us that what matters most is that which keeps us grounded in the place of our choosing. And she writes to expose what remains after all the noise has faded: at the core of this novel is the brave and beating heart, at once vulnerable and determined, unwilling to let go of all it has ever loved.
Maaza Mengiste - New York Times Book Review
[Forna] threads her stories like music.… One is left hauntingly familiar with the distant and alien; not quite able to distinguish the emotional spirits of fiction from the scars of real experience.
Times (UK)
[Forna is] among the most powerful of new voices from Africa.… A novel about the persistence of hope and the redemptive power of love.
Toronto Globe and Mail
[An] elegantly rendered novel of loss and rehabilitation… [that] coalesces into an ambitious exploration of trauma and storytelling.
San Francisco Chronicle
A remarkable feat of storytelling.… [and] a thrilling story of friendship and betrayal.
Karen Holt - Essence
A sprawling, epic novel of love in Sierra Leone from Aminatta Forna, a rising literary star.
Marie Claire
The real pleasure of Forna’s storytelling is in her scrutiny of her characters' inner lives and her ability to connect their choices to the moral dilemmas of a traumatized society
The New Yorker
Forna’s] visceral appreciation of her troubled country is evident on every page of The Memory of Love. So, too, is her probing intelligence—and her compassion.
Salon.com
To read The Memory of Love is to experience, not simply learn about, the inner existences of its characters, even as they lapse in and out of their lives.
Anjali Joseph - Times Literary Supplement (UK)
[A]dmirable if uneven.… Forma's material doesn't measure up to the book's length..… [S]cenes that drag or come off as forced, certainly [don't] ruin the experience, but [they do] occasionally glut what amounts to a heartening cry for moral responsibility.
Publishers Weekly
Forna's second novel after her well-regarded memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water, takes place in Sierra Leone and weaves stories, past and present, involving Kai, a young surgeon; Elias, an older patient; and Adrian, a British psychiatrist.
Library Journal
Fate and tragedy intertwine in this stunning and powerful portrait of a country in the aftermath of a decade of civil war. —Kristen Huntley
Booklist
(Starred review.) A soft-spoken story of brutality and endurance.… Forna’s insight, elegance and elegiac tone never falter. Tragedy and its aftermath are affectingly, memorably evoked in this multistranded narrative from a significant talent.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the start of the story, a dying old man, Elias Cole, is chronicling his life to Adrian, a British psychologist. He says,
This is how it is when you glimpse a woman for the first time, a woman you know you could love. People are wrong when they talk of love at first sight. It is neither love nor lust. No. As she walks away from you, what you feel is loss. A premonition of loss (p. 1).
How does the premonition reappear in the course of the story?
2. Cole’s narrative introduces two of the principal characters, Saffia and Julius Kamara. What first impressions of these people do you get from Elias’s description? Were the impressions accurate? Is the storytelling more confessional than therapeutic? Is Cole creating a myth or unburdening himself?
3. What brought Adrian Lockheart to post-conflict Sierra Leone? What keeps him there?
Adrian’s empathy sounded slight, unconvincing in his own ears. So he nudged his patients along with questions aware of the energy it cost him to obtain a sliver of trust (p. 21).
How do his sessions with his patients affect him? Did you find the name "Lockheart" symbolic? How does Adrian relate to his patients, their experiences, and their culture? What is the divide he cannot cross?
4. A dramatic medical emergency immediately precedes the first meeting between Kai Mansaray, an orthopedic surgeon, and Adrian. How do their differing reactions serve to clarify the differences between the two men? "In the days and weeks that follow, the rhythms of their lives begin to intertwine" (p. 51). In what ways do they start to connect? How does this affect each of them? What is the importance of the friendship to each of them?
5. Elias Cole unravels his story to Adrian, very slowly and very carefully. Why? From his portrayal of his own interaction with the Dean, what do you gather about the nature of his character? Why is he mesmerized by Saffia?
6. When they first meet, Ileana is cold to Adrian. "You should have been here from the start. But of course you weren’t. Nobody was. You all turn up when it’s over" (p. 85). Why does Ileana feel this way, and is her anger justified? What makes her experience different from Adrian’s? Which other characters share her opinion? When he leaves, has Adrian verified or disproved her initial judgment? What is different about her that makes her ask to stay?
7. "And the bridge is the one Elias Cole described. Exactly as he described, Adrian is certain of it. Julius’s bridge" (p. 89). This bridge is mentioned several times in the novel. Why is it "Julius’s bridge?" Why is it significant? Talk about some of the other connecting elements of the story.
8. "Agnes is searching for something. Something she goes out looking for and fails to find. Time after time" (p. 116). Adrian is anxious and troubled by his patient—Kai calls her his holy grail. Talk about her unusual condition—an obsessive traveler, a fuguer, and how it connects with her wartime experience. Is Adrian’s concern just clinical? Can he help her? Why is she so compelling?
9. "The man on the table has dreams, he dreams of marrying" (p. 117). What is the nature of Kai’s interest in his patient Foday? How does he separate his professional and personal lives? What do you know about Kai from his relationships with his old friend Tejani, and later with Adrian? How do these friendships differ?
10. The July 1969 moon landing, as remembered by Elias Cole, is a watershed event in the novel.
"To fly," repeated Julius. "To test the limits of our endeavour, of our courage." He was serious. "Otherwise what point is there in being alive?" (p. 150).
How are the various characters affected, are they changed? Discuss the significance to the story.
11. "Elias Cole. How that name takes Kai back to another time, drops him down into a place in the past he doesn’t want to go" (p. 176). How do the secrets that are guarded keep people from confronting the past? How does it affect the present? Who are the characters who encircle Elias Cole? How are they connected?
12. Memory is a central theme of the book. Talk about the memories of war and of terror, of love, and of pain. Which characters are most haunted by the past? How does each of them endure?
13. Adrian first notices Mamakay when she is with Babagaleh, Elias Cole’s manservant.
As he walked away, he had been suddenly and shockingly aware of something fleetingly and exquisitely possible. So much so, he almost turned back, to say something to Babagaleh—anything—to find a reason to look at her again (p. 137).
Why is Adrian drawn to Mamakay? Do you think there are some parallels between this relationship and the one between Elias Cole and Saffia? What are the differences?
14. How is Adrian changed by his relationship with Mamakay? How does it affect his views of the country and its people?
15. "A lot of people here believe in dreams. So do you, don’t you? Psychologists?" (p. 278). Mamakay tells Adrian. People sleep and wake and dream throughout the story. What shapes the dreams? What is their impact?
16. Consider this passage:
Much later, after they have swum together, he watches Abass play on alone in the waves, crashing through the surf over and over. And he feels his love for the boy rise in his chest, pressing against his ribcage, crushing his lungs and his heart, as if it would suffocate him (p. 262).
Freetown is located on the coast, and the closeness of the sea is always present in the novel. What role does the sea play? Why does Kai feel like a "drowning man watching a ship sail by" (p. 342)? Find other references to the sea in the book.
17. What is the nature of Kai’s relationship with Abass? Why is it such a visceral one? What does Kai do for Abass and what does Abass do for Kai?
18. Late in the book Attila, the head psychiatrist of the mental hospital, says to Adrian,
When I ask you what you expect to achieve for these men, you say you want to return them to normality. So then I must ask you, whose normality? Yours? Mine? (p. 319).
Discuss the nature of each man’s normality. Have Adrian’s ideas about normality changed since the beginning of the book?
19. "But the hope has to be real—Attila’s warning to Adrian. I fall down. I get up. Westerners Adrian has met despise the fatalism. But perhaps it is the way people have found to survive" (p. 320). What do you think of this hypothesis? Do you believe, as is suggested, that the population as a whole is suffering from PTSD? Is that everyone’s secret?
20. Did you find Elias Cole’s final revelation concerning Vanessa shocking? How do Cole’s secrets differ from some of the other characters secrets? Do you think Adrian has gotten to the "point of Elias Cole" (p. 401)? Is Cole a sympathetic character?
21. Read the following passage:
Kai is right. For years nobody wanted to know about the killings, the rapes. The outside world shifted its gaze, by a fraction, it was sufficient. The fragmentation of the conscience. What indeed did Adrian think he was doing here? The truth—he had never known for sure" (pp. 424-425).
What do you think Adrian was doing in Sierra Leone? Why did he stay and why did he decide to leave?
22. In the end, why didn’t Kai leave?
They do not see, for they cannot, as they cross the peninsula bridge, the letter traced by a boy’s forefinger into cement on the far side of the bridge wall half a century ago, beneath the initials of the men who once worked the bridge. J. K. (p. 445).
Are there some distances that cannot be brdged?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)