Transformations of Trauma in Women's Writing

Book excerpt: This volume examines the ways in which trauma alters women’s identities. While some of the chapters look deeply at individual experiences, many of the contributions look to national traumas and the consequences of political abuses, including colonial subjugation and genocide for women. The book shows that language has a transformative power to change us, to give us a great capacity for inner and outer dialogues and for healing and self-love. As shown here, women have historically employed autobiography and memoir to free themselves and others; rather than seeing the limit of form, they reinvent the parameters to offer a new relationship with language.