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Abstract
This article proffers a reading of Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013), hailed as ‘the first truly planetary novel’ (Gleeson-White), arguing that Wright’s poetics of transgenerational trauma witnesses to intersected trans-species injustices and traumas. Exploring the way Wright testifies to entanglements of human-nonhuman trauma, I challenge entrenched humanist and speciesist preoccupations in trauma theory to address trauma transmissions with particular focus on trauma as a social and political force generated by patriarchal imperialism. In doing so, I show how Wright’s fiction serves as a form of advocacy for nonhuman sentient beings.
Recommended Citation
Atkinson, Meera, Alexis Wright’s Literary Testimony to Intersecting Traumas, Animal Studies Journal, 7(1), 2018, 41-58.Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol7/iss1/3
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