Cartographies of Trauma: Memory, Spatial Dislocation & Imperial History in Jean Rhys and Amitav Ghosh A Critical Study

Cartographies of Trauma offers a groundbreaking comparative analysis of two foundational postcolonial novels: Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines. Moving beyond conventional psychological readings, this book argues that trauma in postcolonial fiction is a fundamentally spatial, historical, and cultural phenomenon.

Through rigorous close reading and an integrated theoretical framework drawing on postcolonial theory, trauma studies, memory studies, and spatial theory, it reveals how imperial violence is inscribed not just in bodies and minds, but in the houses, borders, and imagined geographies that shape human experience.

This is an essential resource for students, researchers, and educators in postcolonial literary studies. It provides:

• A detailed comparative framework connecting Caribbean and South Asian histories of trauma.

• In-depth analysis of narrative form, memory, and spatial representation in both novels.

• Accessible explanations of key theoretical concepts, from unhomeliness and hybridity to postmemory and multidirectional memory.

• Practical guidance for essay writing, examination preparation (including UGC-NET/JRF), and independent research.

By reading Rhys and Ghosh together, Cartographies of Trauma demonstrates how literature not only represents historical violence but actively maps the geography of colonial and postcolonial suffering, offering new ways to understand memory, belonging, and survival.