Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from …
The relationship between memory and landscape is often overlooked, especially while examining the impact of environmentally induced distress on people. Traditionally, grief, trauma and nostalgia were attributed to human losses in socio-political violence. But it is equally imperative in case of individual/communal memory and other emotional tribunals of natural disaster victims and climate refugees. Their …
In a Q&A session with the Booker Prize, Avni Doshi talked about the centrality of art in the narrative as such; “On the level of story, art plays a central role in how the characters develop in Burnt Sugar. The major conflicts between characters are framed by the artistic production of the narrator. On a …
The past is not dead. In fact, it is not even past. William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (1951) Amidst the clamorous turbulence, turmoil and tumult of the Partition, Basti sits in a sombre, solemn, albeit ruptured, landscape. At the outset, the reader encounters a mythic, almost mystic echo-chamber of voices of a reminiscing history …
Memory and Memoir in Intizar Husain’s Basti: A Study of Memory in Exile – Aditi Singh Read More »
What are collective memories of the past and how are they remembered? A. Assmann has argued that collective memories must be defined in terms of the function they play in society. “Just as autobiographical memories are individually held memories that bear on the identity of an individual, collective memories are widely held memories of community …
Remembering and Forgetting: Collective Memory – Angel Maria Varghese Read More »
Episodic memory is a category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of specific events, situations, and experiences. Since every individual views and understands circumstances differently and because every person has different memories of those events, episodic memory is vital to your sense of self. In a person with Alzheimer’s, there is a decline in …
The novelty of the Stream of Consciousness technique is its user-friendly nature. Its universal occurrence lends to its familiarity. The unpolished and unstructured thoughts are far from other pieces of literature, notably the Interior Monologue technique. Although similar, the Interior Monologue technique employs the structure and combines the Stream of Consciousness’s apparent incoherence and disorderly …
Circadian Novels within a Stream of Consciousness – Aayushi Sharma Read More »
The Girl in White Cotton is a debut novel by Avni Doshi, published in 2019 that explores the entanglements between memory, shared trauma and caregiving. The plot follows the fraught relationship between a mother and daughter, Tara and Antara. The daughter must care for her mother, as the latter is suffering from memory loss caused by the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
While Edwardian Materialists had great storytelling, their writing doesn’t allow the reader to have the level of immersion as other modes of writing. According to Virginia Woolf, materialism is when an author dedicates the setting to descriptors of only the material world and incorporates the physical solely in the process of world-building. In her essay …
