Unofficial Wars: The Politics of Disappearance

Gabriele Schwab

European Review, 2014, vol. 22, issue 4, 642-651

Abstract: This article examines Michael Ondaatje’s 2001 novel Anil’s Ghost, placing it within the context of a history of disappearance as a form of state terrorism on a global level. It contests the controversial response that Ondaatje’s work received, which alleged lack of political engagement in the novel on account of what critics saw as its ‘Westernised approach’. Instead, what is argued here is that Anil’s Ghost presents a particular form of ‘working through’, first by approaching disappearances through the embedded lives and subjectivities of targeted populations, and second by using the specific historical and local setting in Sri Lanka to explore the politics of disappearances as a global phenomenon.

Date: 2014
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