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  4. “The Returning Echoes of Our Memory”: Networks of Memory and Postcolonial Trauma in Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain

“The Returning Echoes of Our Memory”: Networks of Memory and Postcolonial Trauma in Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain

Vandana Saxena: Taylor's University Malaysia

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/

Abstract

In the societies forged at the anvil of colonial violence, the stories of the past are a contested territory. For postcolonial writers, literature offers a space to explore the trauma that marks the colonial experience and also to forge connections based on common suffering and loss. Stories and experience, when shared, produce new social relations and understanding to replace the relationships and legacies of the past. This paper explores Tan Twan Eng’s novel, The Gift of Rain, to trace the interlinked legacies of the Second World War and colonialism in Malaysia. As Tan’s characters—all from varied cultural and national backgrounds—meet, the cross-cultural storytelling creates a network of memories that transcend the boundaries of nationality, culture, and ethnicity. Trauma acquires a transnational and transhistorical dimension which enables the protagonists to live and engage with the colonial legacy.

Keywords

Malaysian literature, networks of memory, postcolonial fiction, trauma

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Kritika Kultura
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Ateneo de Manila University

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International Board of Editors

Jan Baetens
Professor
Faculty of Arts
Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)

Joel David
Professor of Cultural Studies
Inha University (South Korea)

Michael Denning
Professor of American Studies and English
Department of English
Yale University (US)

Faruk
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

Regenia Gagnier
Professor of English
University of Exeter (UK)

Leela Gandhi
John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English
Brown University (US)

Inderpal Grewal
Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor of South Asian Studies, Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies
Yale University (US)

Peter Horn
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Lifetime Fellow
University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Honorary Professor and Research Associate in German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Anette Horn
Professor of German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
University of California, Riverside (US)

Bienvenido Lumbera
National Artist for Literature
Professor Emeritus
University of the Philippines

Rajeev S. Patke
Director of the Division of Humanities
Professor of Humanities
Yale NUS College (Singapore)

Vicente L. Rafael
Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Professor of History
University of Washington (US)

Vaidehi Ramanathan
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Davis (US)

Temario Rivera
Professorial Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of the Philippines

E. San Juan, Jr.
Philippines Studies Center (US)

Neferti X.M. Tadiar
Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Barnard College (US)
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Columbia University (US)

Antony Tatlow
Honorary Professor of Drama
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)

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