Narrative Empathy, Vulnerability and Ethics of Care in William Trevor’s Fiction

This essay engages with the relationship between ethics and literature. To this end, it addresses the theoretical framework of narrative empathy as illustrative of the supposed ethical power of literary writing. Using a corpus of William Trevor’s fiction, Reading Turgenev (1991) and Love and Summer (2009) as case study, the essay suggests that Trevor’ use of metafictional devices (metalepses and the disnarrated), temporal disarray and multifocal perspectives tends to complicate the general assumption of empathy as necessarily easy and spontaneous. These formal strategies of literary representation manifest the underlying manipulative nature of narrative empathy, confronting readers with the ethical effects of empathy. In so doing, Trevor’s fiction edges towards the aesthetics of vulnerability in that it entails an ethics of reading and writing that reminds the reader of the darkest sides of human existence

“Narrative Form and Palimpsestic Memory in Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift”

This essay explores Namwali Serpell’s debut novel The Old Drift (2019) through the lens of ‘palimpsestic memory’, contending that the novel articulates an interconnectedness between memory and migration. Firstly, I will investigate how the tension between aeonic temporality and some paratextual elements that attempt to install order and direct the reader’s orientation mimic and resonate with the intricate motif of the palimpsest. Then, I will illustrate how the alternation between extradiegetic and intradiegetic narration and the format of the multigenerational novel contribute to create a palimpsestic tale where several generations and different stories are inextricably intertwined, generating a spiral pattern where the multiple and invisible trajectories of temporality are refracted and eventually converge

Archives of Environmental Apocalypse in Sarah Moss’ Cold Earth: Archaeology, Viruses and Melancholia

In contrast to the traditional genre of eco-apocalyptic fiction, Sarah Moss’ debut novel, Cold Earth (2009), does not culminate in a collective catastrophe. It instead employs archaeology, environmental apocalypse, viruses and ghosts to disclose the transformative power of the archive. This article surveys the ways through which the archaeological motif, environmental apocalypse, elegiac tones and disarrayed temporality can function as archiving vehicles, preserving past memory and opening up to the future. And yet, in doing this, both landscape and writing melancholically internalize losses, so as to become themselves archives, while eventually edging towards post-melancholic attachments

Arundhati Roy as a Transmodern Intellectual. Gender Troubles, Ethnic Conflicts and Vulnerable Ecology

This article adopts a transmodernapproach to Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happinessand it contends that Roy’s fusion of anti-global activism, typical of her non-fiction writings, and literary imagination, reminiscent of Indian epic texts, can provide an interesting instance of a transmodern intellectual perspective. In particular, by examining gender troubles, ethnic conflicts and vulnerable ecology, my article argues that Roy’s second novel refracts the decolonial/postcolonial debateby means of a hybrid narrative form.This interplay between creative writing and intellectualactivism can be said to chime with transmodern ethics in that it promotes attentiveness to the perspective of the most marginalised

Jhumpa Lahiri, the Interpreter of the New Indian Diaspora

Ilustración: "Day 248 – Curves", Tyler BrownAcceso: http://ojs.impossibilia.org/index.php/impossibilia/article/view/4Published in 1999, at the turn of a new century and on the threshold of the third millennium, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, among many other awards) is a collection of stories charting the new Indian diaspora, in the aftermath of the 1965 reformation of the American immigration policy. This paper proposes a textual analysis of Lahiri’s debut work through the lens of diasporic discourse, in order to show how the poised and elegant voice of the Indian-American writer significantly sheds new light on diasporic literature, mediating between ethnic and global issues.Pubblicati nel 1999, all’inizio di un nuovo secolo e sulla soglia del terzo millennio, i racconti in Interpreter of Maladies di Jhumpa Lahiri (vincitore del Pulitzer per la narrativa, tra molti altri premi) narrano le vicende della nuova diaspora indiana, nel periodo immediatamente successivo alla riforma del 1965 della politica americana sull’immigrazione. Il presente articolo offre un’analisi testuale del libro di esordio della Lahiri attraverso la lente del diasporic discourse, al fine di mostrare come la voce equilibrata e elegante della scrittrice indiano-americana contribuisca, in modo significativo, a spargere nuova luce sulla letteratura della diaspora, mediando tra questioni etniche e globali

Georgic echoes in "The Long Dry" and "The Dig" by Cynan Jones

From his debut novel, “The Long Dry” (2006), to his most recent, “Stillicide” (2019), the non-human has played a prominent role in Cynan Jones’ fiction. Of Jones’ texts, “The Long Dry” and “The Dig” (2014) specifically engage with cultivation, farming, and raising livestock in a Welsh rustic setting. Both novels present a rural world that resists idealised forms of representing nature as some kind of idyll, thus calling into question the separation between human and non-human. Starting from this premise, my working hypothesis is that the relationship between human and non-human constitutes a relevant trope in Jones’ fiction since they are both caught in the very same moment of crisis, change and transformation. To this end, I would like to read “The Long Dry” and “The Dig” through Timothy Morton’s idea of the mesh that connects human to non-human. Firstly, I will discuss the generic features of the novels, such as shifting focalisation and temporal disorientation which can be said to favour an encounter between storytelling and material reality. Secondly, I will address Jones’ interest in the erosion of the border between human and non-human, illustrating the affective bonds and sensory ties that connect both dimensions. Taken together, Jones’ novels entail a deep eco-georgic stance in that rural life is recast in terms of a thematic and material space that brings together human and non-human, conflating change and crisis, failure and success.Desde su primera novela, “The Long Dry” (2006), hasta su más reciente, “Stillicide” (2019), lo no humano ha jugado un papel prominente en la ficción de Cynan Jones. De entre todos los textos de Jones, “The Long Dry” y “The Dig” (2014) versan específicamente sobre el cultivo, la agricultura y la cría de ganado en un entorno rústico galés. Ambas novelas presentan un mundo rural que se resiste a las formas idealizadas de representación de la naturaleza como algo idílico, poniendo en tela de juicio la separación entre lo humano y lo no humano. Partiendo de esta premisa, mi hipótesis de trabajo es que la relación entre lo humano y lo no humano constituye un tropo relevante en la ficción de Jones, ya que ambos están atrapados en el mismo momento de crisis, cambio y transformación. Con este propósito, me propongo leer “The Long Dry” y “The Dig” a partir de la idea de Timothy Morton de la malla (“the mesh”) que conecta lo humano con lo no humano. En primer lugar, analizaré rasgos genéricos de las novelas tales como el cambio de focalización y la desorientación temporal, que podría decirse que favorecen el encuentro entre ficción narrativa y realidad material. En segundo lugar, abordaré el interés de Jones por erosionar las fronteras entre lo humano y lo no-humano, ilustrando los vínculos afectivos y sensoriales que conectan ambas dimensiones. Consideradas en su conjunto, las novelas de Jones conllevan una profunda postura eco-geórgica en el sentido de que remodelan la vida rural como un espacio que aúna lo humano y lo no-humano, amalgamando cambio y crisis, éxito y fracaso

NARRATIVE EMPATHY IN JAMES BRADLEY’S CLADE: DISABILITY, ECOSICKNESS AND HOPE

In his latest novel Clade (2015), Australian author James Bradley portrays apocalyptic scenarios in the aftermath of the ubiquitous climate change that is affecting our planet, while following the human conflicts of three generations of the Leith family. And yet, this article argues that the novel privileges an optative mood instead of the traditional collective catastrophe of canonical eco-fiction. To do so, the article scrutinises some formal strategies of narrative empathy, such as character identification and multiple focalisation, which favour the reader’s emotional engagement. In the novel, vulnerable manifestations disclose a profound empathic orientation, addressing an ethics of care that implicates the reader affectively

Between Hagiography and Insanity: Refracting Political Violence in William Trevor’s Elegiac Fiction

This article explores William Trevor’s depiction of hagiography and insanity in a body of novels and short stories portraying the violent intrusions of history in the lives of ordinary individuals. It is contended that at the core of Trevor’s fiction lie traumatic experiences coming to the surface when controversial Anglo-Irish history penetrates personal identities and that, in portraying the vulnerability of such precarious human conditions, an elegiac mode emerges. On the one hand, the article illustrates how hagiography and insanity contribute to amplify and mimic the destructive effects of historical frictions. By this it is meant that the fragmented syntax, the temporal disarray and the almost mute perspective of Trevor’s elegiac characters provide instances through which public traumas are acted out into the realm of the private. On the other hand, it is claimed that the very fact of embracing the wounds is an ethical gesture reminding readers of the restorative power of hagiography and insanity. It is finally suggested that one possible function of Trevor’s elegiac temper is to raise consciousness, implying that his eccentric characters issue an invitation to take account of the sense of loss informing his œuvre, where political violence is eventually compensated

Specialised translation in Apulia: Training and employability

My article reports on the tentative results of a wider investigation aimed at exploring the state of affairs of the market of specialised translation services in Apulia. More specifically, the project’s idea intends to match the needs of the local labour market for specialised translation on the one hand and academic education and training on the other hand, in order to foster a multimodal methodology that combines linguistic competence and technological skills. In the first part of my article, I will illustrate the results of a survey of the local market for specialised translation. The survey takes into account the type of clients, the most in-demand languages and linguistic domains, and the use of the CAT tools. In the second part, instead, I will focus on the data of two needs analysis questionnaires addressed to the first-year students of the Master’s Degree in “Specialised Translation” at the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”. The questionnaires collect data about the respondents’ personal information, skills, motivation, usage of technology applied to translation and expectations, thus providing a way to map the needs of the future specialised translators. Finally, I will relate the results of the market survey and the data of the needs analysis questionnaires to match market demands, formative needs and European standards for translation services