Women Writing Trauma in the Global South: A Study of Aminatta Forna, Isabel Allende and Anuradha Roy

Description

Through exploring complex suffering in the writings of Aminatta Forna, Isabel Allende and Anuradha Roy, Women Writing Trauma in the Global South dismantles conceptual shortcomings and problematic imbalances at the core of existing theorizations around psychological trauma. The global constellation of women writers from Sierra Leone, Chile and India facilitates a productive analysis of how the texts navigate intertwined experiences of individual and systemic trauma. The discussion departs from a recent critical turn in literary and cultural trauma studies and transgresses many interrelated boundaries of geocultural contexts, language and genre. Discovering the role of literary forms in reparative articulation and empathic witnessing, this critical intervention develops new ideas for an inclusive conceptual expansion of trauma from the global peripheries and contributes to the ongoing debate on marginalized suffering. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction: Concepts and Contexts of Psychological Wounding Canonical Cultural Trauma Theory and Emerging Critical Perspectives The Case for a Reconceptualization of Trauma Wound Narratives from the Global South Notes Chapter 2: Aminatta Forna Fictional Representations of Traumatic Disintegration in The Memory of Love Prolonged and Insidious Trauma in The Devil that Danced on the Water Narrative Critique of the PTSD Category in Happiness Narrative Negotiations of a Context-specific Trauma Model Complicated Witnessing in The Devil that Danced on the Water Unempathic Gazing and Professional Witnessing in Happiness Post-traumatic Resilience in Happiness Notes Chapter 3: Isabel Allende Writing during Trauma in Paula Fictional Representations of Childhood Trauma in Portrait in Sepia Inscriptions of Trauma in Landscape: Exile and Mental Dislocation Resurfacing of Wounds in Storytelling Epistolary Narration in Articulating Bereavement Magical Realist Elements in Representing the Unspeakable Photography as a Testimonial Practice in Portrait in Sepia Narrating ‘Belonging’ in My Invented County Notes Chapter 4: Anuradha Roy Fictional Representations of Prolonged Childhood Violence Topographic and Architectural Manifestations of Traumatic Unhomeliness in An Atlas of Impossible Longing Familial Disintegration and Unhomeliness Self-Awareness and Transgression of Forms in Articulating Trauma Epistolary Elements and Narrative Authority Notes Chapter 5: Conclusion: Connecting Trauma Narratives in the Global South Inscriptions of Complex Wounds Towards Conceptual Inclusivity Bibliography Index