- 40 - Sokoto Journal Of Language, Literature and Linguistics | Vol. 2, November 2022 THE PANGS OF TRAUMA IN AYI KWEI ARMAH’S THE BEAUTYFUL ONES ARE NOT YET BORN Nureni Oyewole Fadare Department Of English Language and Linguistics Sokoto State University, Sokoto, Abstract Ayi Kwei Armah is a notable postcolonial African writer who dedicates his writings to reflect on the post-independence life of African people using his home country, Ghana, as a country of reference. Most of the critical works done on Armah focused more on post-independent disillusionment and theme of corruption. Hence, the need to look into the effects of the disoriented society on the characters in the text. This paper examines the pangs of Trauma in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful ones are not yet Born as a text of reference. The novel is read from the viewpoint of postcolonialism and trauma. It is revealed that the post-independence African states are marred by strong social divides between the self-acclaimed party members that occupy the ruling class and the oppressed traumatised poor. The lifestyle of the rich as well as the gap between the rich and the poor is widened by corrupt practices across the social strata. This further heightened the challenges of the traumatised characters. Ayi Kwei Armah lampoons a disoriented society that is ruled by self- opinionated and corrupt leaders and how the effects of their misruled triggers traumatized memories in the characters. Unfortunately, the text could not give any gleam of hope to the psychosocial sufferings of the people. The changes in the government of the corrupt, self-styled socialist party to a Military government has little change on the social structure and the corrupt practices in the society. Hence, the people revolve round a circle characterized by trauma. Keywords: Ayi Kwei Armah, Postcolonial Trauma, Post-independence African States, Military Government Introduction Trauma, as a theory, is an offshoot of psychoanalysis and it has been deployed recently as literary theory in the reading and analysis of literary texts. Eaglestone Robert in his Article entitled: “You would not add to my suffering if you knew what I have seen: Holocaust Testimony and contemporary African Traumatic Literature” examined the connectivity between the traumatic holocaust experience and traumatic literature. He based his argument on the proposition of Michael Rothberg and what he refers as “Traumatic Realism” (p. 79). Literature always reflects the realities and