GROTESQUE BODIES: TRAGIC LAUGHTER IN CONTEMPORARY IRAQI FICTION

Hanan Jasim Khammas

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Resum

Iraqi fiction written after 2003 is potentially distinguishable from the fiction of other periods by the aesthetic phenomena which entails the grotesque representation of the body. This article sheds light on the notion of ‘tragic laughter’ as a constituent of the grotesque Image of the body as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin and Julia Kristeva. Such notion is regarded here as an indispensable recourse within the aesthetics of strangeness and post-colonial gothic which, as Yasmeen Hanoosh and Haytham Bahoora respectively argue, characterise Iraqi fiction of this period. Focusing on the short fiction of Hassan Blasim and Diaa Jubaili as prototypes, this article shows how laughter and the grotesque body display socio-political anxiety – which is not strange to the tradition of narrative genres in Iraq – and suggest a new style and perhaps some of the most significant developments in the Iraqi aesthetics after 2003, as they indicate a shift in the perception of embodiment and corporeality in contemporary Iraqi culture, as well as being both a symptom and a coping mechanism to narrate historic trauma.
Idioma originalAnglès
RevistaRivista degli Studi Orientali
Estat de la publicacióEn premsa - 2024

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