Abstract

The prolonged trauma experience still dominates Iraqi narratives and their articulation of self and place in a country ravaged by war. Hence, literature through such works provides them with an indispensable way of giving voice to their wounds and reclaiming the humanity that has been traumatized by war. Besides, the Iraqi-American writer Sinan Antoon, in his novel The Corpse Washer, proves an extraordinary gift not only at giving words to the wounds of his country, but also at finding ways to maneuver and negotiate such traumas. By exposing the psychological and emotional consequences of war in such a way, he redefines war trauma, explores the various manifestations of violence in Iraq, and equips the people with ways to maneuver such evils. Therefore, the current study explores the novelist’s ways of textual representations of death, violence, and traumatic images, as presented in The Corpse Washer. It also investigates how Antoon condemns the horror of war and the unmaking of the Iraqi character through the use of aesthetic elements like nightmares, fragmentation, and other symbolic portrayals like touching and washing corpses. Besides, this article argues that trauma has left Iraqis with a perplexing sense of life and death as well as a burning desire to flee the country. In view of that, the study also implies that examining Antoon’s trauma story can provide us with an interpretation and insights into Iraqis’ pervasive feelings of powerlessness, alienation, embitterment, stagnancy, and hopelessness, but with a persistent determination to resist death and embrace life nonetheless.