Trauma and Recovery in the Twenty-First-Century Irish Novel

The desire to engage and confront traumatic subjects was a facet of Irish literature for much of the twentieth century. Yet, just as Irish society has adopted a more direct and open approach to the past, so too have Irish authors evolved in their response to, and literary uses of, trauma.

In Trauma and Recovery in the Twenty-First-Century Irish Novel, Costello-Sullivan considers the ways in which the Irish canon not only represents an ongoing awareness of trauma as a literary and cultural force, but also how this representation has shifted since the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century. While earlier trauma narratives center predominantly on the role of silence and the individual and/or societal suffering that traumas induce, twenty-first-century Irish narratives increasingly turn from just the recognition of traumatic experiences toward exploring and representing the process of healing and recovery both structurally and narratively. Through a series of keenly observed close readings, Costello-Sullivan explores the work of Colm T ib n, John Banville, Anne Enright, Emma Donohue, Colum McCann, and Sebastian Barry. In highlighting the power of narrative to amend and address memory and trauma, Costello-Sullivan argues that these works reflect a movement beyond merely representing trauma toward also representing the
possibility of recovery from it.

Author: Kathleen Costello-Sullivan
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 05/07/2018
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.30w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9780815635857

About the Author
Kathleen Costello-Sullivan is professor of modern Irish literature at Le Moyne College. She is the author of Mother/Country: Politics of the Personal in the Fiction of Colm Tóibín and editor of Carmilla: A Critical Edition and a critical edition of Poor Women by Norah Hoult.