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.

Keywords: trauma, affect, transgenerational trauma, trauma transmission, literary testimony, poetics, intersectionality, speciesism, Alexis Wright

How to Cite:

Atkinson, M., (2018) “Alexis Wright’s Literary Testimony to Intersecting Traumas”, Animal Studies Journal 7(1), 41-58.