War and Violence in Sinan Antoon’s The Corpse Washer

Abstract

War is the greatest source of violence in the world. It is the most disastrous expression of tendencies to violence innate to human nature. Iraq has suffered for a long time from the repercussions of war and violence and in this country ravaged by war trauma; the only space left for memory has been literature. Personal and political traumas have characterized the works of Iraqi writers who have been either victims of traumatic experience themselves or have been firsthand witnesses to trauma in Iraq. Literature provides them with an avenue to reclaim the humanity of all those who have been traumatized by the violence represented by war. Drawing on the theory of trauma, the paper seeks to explore the notions of war trauma and violence in Sinan Antoon's novel The Corpse Washer (2014) that reveals Iraq’s traumatic and violent history. The paper examines the ways in which the novel bears witness to, protests against and exposes the devastating effects of war and violence.