The Silence Around Family Abuse

When I wrote Sun on Your Back, I wanted to give shape to the silence that so often surrounds domestic violence and incest — especially in families where image, culture, and shame conspire to bury generational wounds. Like many novels with generational wounds and family secrets, this story leans into what’s often left unsaid.

The novel opens with a blunt confession:
“Dad’s dead Dee. Mum said she killed him.”

It’s not just the shock of death, but the deeper unravelling that follows — a family fractured by trauma, the legacy of childhood abuse, and a justice system that struggles to comprehend the nuance of survival.

Writing Zimbabwean Fiction Rooted in Truth

Zimbabwean authorities apprehend Diara Kruger’s mother, Sophia, for killing her husband, forcing Diara to confront her past. The narrative moves between past and present, two continents, two cultures — and reflects the kind of layered storytelling often found in family secrets Zimbabwean fiction.

Sophia’s story — that of a battered woman who eventually fights back — becomes entangled in a legal system that is unforgiving, patriarchal, and often blind to the realities of domestic abuse. Her lawyer, Rudo Shava, is determined to prove self-defence in a society where women are not just silenced but punished for surviving. And yet, Sophia remains hostile and unresponsive — a portrait of how deeply trauma can bury voice, even when it’s needed most.

Diara, meanwhile, grapples with her own haunted past — and with her inability to sustain a romantic relationship. Her bond with Xander, a friend from university now trapped in a strained marriage, leads to a tangle of desire, betrayal, and guilt — all underpinned by the racial and colonial legacies of Southern Africa. Their story is not one of peaceful resolution, but of the aching complexity that trauma leaves behind in love, sex, and trust.

On Writing Childhood Trauma Book Themes

I didn’t set out to write a courtroom drama. Nor did I want to reduce the story to a “message” novel. What I hoped was to show how abuse lingers — in families, in memory, in the body — and how survival, though never neat or heroic, is still possible. These childhood trauma book themes are difficult, but essential.

Over time, I’ve come to see that Sun on Your Back belongs to a wider body of literature — one that refuses to look away.

Books That Walk Beside Mine

Here are a few books that, in different ways, walk beside mine:

• Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison — Unrelenting in its depiction of abuse, class, and complicity, with a child’s voice at the centre.
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara — Expansive, devastating, and deeply invested in the long arc of trauma.
• The Gathering by Anne Enright — Subtle and elliptical, examining how family secrets and shame shape generations.
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold — Told from the perspective of a murdered child, it focuses on grief, family dynamics, and the aftershocks of violence.
• Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera — A memoir that powerfully addresses family abuse and the cost of breaking silence in honour-based cultures.

These are not comfortable reads. But they are necessary ones. They show us what fiction — and memoir — can do: break the silence, challenge the structures that protect abusers, and offer a kind of companionship for anyone who has lived through the unspoken.

An Author Advocating Social Justice Through Fiction

As an author advocating social justice, I believe fiction must reflect both the pain and the possibility of change. Stories like Sun on Your Back challenge silence, push back against stigma, and remind us that survival deserves to be witnessed.

If you’ve read a book that helped you feel seen, or helped you understand what others carry quietly, I’d love to know. Let’s keep talking. Let’s keep telling the truth.

📖 Sun on Your Back is available on Amazon:
Mist and Unappeased Spirits eBook : Khan, Naira
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