Chronicle of a Death Foretold in Flanders

Abstract

Many years ago, my master thesis advisor told me that if I wanted to understand the history of a country, I should read novels. His statement caused me to reflect seriously on what it is that novels do, the truths (and untruths) they yield. This creative piece is inspired primarily by literature and is an attempt to understand how the needless death of a black university student could occur in a society that doggedly continues to view racism as something other societies do. It is simultaneously an attempt to explore how silences in the telling of history have been challenged by authors of colour, how the past reverberates into the present, and the implications for those living in the (African) diaspora. I draw on research that I conducted in two Flemish primary schools, which explored how doxic conceptions of education and belonging, equally racialized, are both reproduced and contested.