Abstract for 11. Virginia Hamilton’s The magical adventures of Pretty Pearl (1983): a narrative of blacks’ history in America

The present essay examines Virginia Hamilton’s The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl (1983) as a chronicle of the history of the African Americans in the American society. It contends that Blacks’ contribution to the American history overpasses their purported passiveness due to the overwhelming yoke of the institution of slavery. For a rigorous study of Blacks’ contribution in the American history, the trauma theory has been used to give away the impacts of historical and cultural trauma that weigh on the Black people in America. For the same objectives, a postmodern reading has been applied in this work so as to reveal the silenced stories that contradict the Eurocentric metanarratives and its totalizing discourses on Blacks. Through these readings, it has been demonstrated that the history of the African Americans on the American soil has started as a truncated history and they are still going through unceasing struggles to be rehabilitated and to live as whole citizens.