Trauma, memory and re-finding oneself: Case study of Doan Minh Phuong’s Va Khi Tro Bui when thi and Banana Yoshimoto’s Ho

Abstract

This paper will compare the novel And When this Dust (Doan Minh Phuong) and The Lake (Banana Yoshimoto) from the perspective of trauma theory. Both novels have characters who have lost their direction in reality due the psychological trauma of having to face the death of their loved one. The journey to look back on the past and retrace the memories is also the character’s journey find identity themselves. Through the haunting stories and silent pains of the characters in these two novels, my paper focuses on clarifying the similarities and differences of the two authors in the way they reconstruct trauma narratives, as well as the similarities and differences in history, culture and people of Vietnamese and Japanese literature, from the viewpoint of two contemporary female authors.