Elegies of Absence

Abstract This essay examines how the now-adult children of the disappeared in The Gambia express their grief through various art forms, focusing on the elegy. Peter Sacks, defines the elegy as “a poem of mortal loss and consolation” (Sacks 3). The traditional functions of the elegy—lament, praise, and consolation—respond to loss by expressing grief and honoring the deceased. The essay explores the mourning process of three young adults through songwriting, letter writing, and memorial tattoos dedicated to their fathers who disappeared during Yahya Jammeh’s dictatorship. In an Islamic context, where retaining objects of the deceased is discouraged, these children find ways to remember their lost parents without material objects. Cathy Caruth argues that “to be traumatized is precisely to be possessed by an image or event” (Caruth 4–5). Here, it is the absence of a clear image and event that haunts these children, leading to artistic creation through elegiac writing and embodied meaning-making.