The Performance of Trauma in Fiction
Priyanka Chakrabarty dives into examples of contemporary South Asian literature to explore the blurred line between trauma and ‘trauma porn’. Can fiction account for lived experiences and realities of trauma without making the plot performative?
Poetry by John Copley Alter: ‘In the proximity / of other gods—other sutras— / we muttered our creed—you // pecking / away at your manual typewriter— / carbon copies of personal letters / home—to the diaspora—we // noodling on the keyboard of happiness’