Ethical Memory and Politics of Trauma: A Critical Reading of Palpasa Café and Forget Kathmandu

Abstract

This thesis analyses the cultural politics of memory and trauma in Narayan Wagle's Palpasa Café and Manjushree Thapa’s Forget Kathmandu. My argument is that Wagle and Thapa's memory of war is contaminated by the cultural ideologies. Their memory, thus, takes an ethical turn and becomes a part of the larger ideological politics. Their narrativazion of trauma – contaminated by ideology uses the language of demonization. The thesis argues that writer's authorities, editing and sensorship practices ultimately lead their literature of trauma that narrativization to traumatic memory. Wagle uses largely against the Maoists in Palpasa Café while Thapa does the same against the Napalese Army in Forget Kathmandu.