A Conversation with Megha Majumdar, Maaza Mengiste, Pierre Jarawan
Walter Benjamin noted that to “articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it the way it really was.” Indeed, history may be written by the victors, yet the present and immediate past are constantly being rewritten or repictured by victims, witnesses and perpetrators of violence in ways large and small. The Indian novelist Megha Majumdar, the Ethiopian-American writer and photographer Maaza Mengiste, and the German-Lebanese novelist and slam poet Pierre Jarawan join Tess Lewis to discuss their latest novels and the distorting effects trauma and shame exert on individual and collective identities. To what extent can literature offer correctives to the dominant narratives within and between societies in conflict?
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