Abstract
This article explores the spectral presence of the past in the form of skulls and emotional trauma in a story about a country ravaged by a protracted war. It analyzes Anil’s Ghost (2000), a novel by Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan Canadian writer renowned for constructing revisionist and fictional historiographic narratives. The novel speaks about a phase of the ethno-nationalist civil war in contemporary Sri Lanka, and the article expounds on the deconstruction and understanding of war and history as represented in this piece of fiction. In deprecating a unilateral and cohesive representation of history, the novel presents multiple voices and subverts the notion of a single truth, thereby challenging the unity and logic of representing history in fiction. It also highlights the lingering effects of past violence and buried memories haunting the present for the purpose of closure in the form of splintered personal memories resurfacing at random moments.
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© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Haunted by the Past: Understanding History and the Aftermath of War in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost
- Decolonized Trauma: Narrative, Memory and Identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
- Übersetzungstheorie aus Brasilien: Haroldo de Campos im Dialog mit Christian Morgenstern
- Colossal Scrawls and Divine Naughts: Images of Formlessness in Gottfried Keller’s Der grüne Heinrich and Robert Walser’s Jakob von Gunten
- A Second Concealment: Quasimodo in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus
- Reisen ohne Bewegung: Oskar Loerkes lyrische Deterritorialisierungen
- Engagement et mélancolie dans Écoutez nos défaites de Laurent Gaudé
- Reviews
- Eva Geulen und Claude Haas, Hgg.: Formen des Ganzen. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2022. 551 S.
- Annie Pfeifer: To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell UP, 2023. 347 pp.
- Daniel O. Dahlstrom, ed.: Kant and His German Contemporaries. Volume II: Aesthetics, History, Politics, and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2018. 285 pp.
- Moritz Baßler: Populärer Realismus. Vom International Style gegenwärtigen Erzählens. München: C. H. Beck, 2022. 408 Seiten.
- Paul B. Preciado: Dysphoria Mundi. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2022. 549 pp.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Haunted by the Past: Understanding History and the Aftermath of War in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost
- Decolonized Trauma: Narrative, Memory and Identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
- Übersetzungstheorie aus Brasilien: Haroldo de Campos im Dialog mit Christian Morgenstern
- Colossal Scrawls and Divine Naughts: Images of Formlessness in Gottfried Keller’s Der grüne Heinrich and Robert Walser’s Jakob von Gunten
- A Second Concealment: Quasimodo in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus
- Reisen ohne Bewegung: Oskar Loerkes lyrische Deterritorialisierungen
- Engagement et mélancolie dans Écoutez nos défaites de Laurent Gaudé
- Reviews
- Eva Geulen und Claude Haas, Hgg.: Formen des Ganzen. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2022. 551 S.
- Annie Pfeifer: To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell UP, 2023. 347 pp.
- Daniel O. Dahlstrom, ed.: Kant and His German Contemporaries. Volume II: Aesthetics, History, Politics, and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2018. 285 pp.
- Moritz Baßler: Populärer Realismus. Vom International Style gegenwärtigen Erzählens. München: C. H. Beck, 2022. 408 Seiten.
- Paul B. Preciado: Dysphoria Mundi. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2022. 549 pp.