WOUNDS OF MEMORY: TRAUMA, VIOLENCE, AND IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY SRI LANKAN FICTION

This paper investigates the depictions of trauma, violence, and identity in contemporary Sri Lankan fiction through postcolonial trauma theory and beginning with the literary aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war (1983 – 2009). This paper examines how authors such as Michael Ondaatje, Shyam Selvadurai, Nayomi Munaweera, Romesh Gunesekera and others encounter collective trauma and individual trauma and their conversations with gender, sexuality, and identity. Using close literary readings informed by trauma theory, postcolonial studies, and queer theory, my research illustrates how contemporary Sri Lankan fiction utilize distinct narrative strategies that engage with unrepresentable experiences of war and demonstrate how trauma informs the development of identity in postcolonial contexts. Overall, the paper posits that Sri Lankan fiction critically attends to the emergence of contemporary trauma discourse in novel ways about the intersections of personal and political violence and concepts of belonging, displacement, and healing in postcolonial contexts.