Memory and Trauma: Experiences of Three Women Anglophone Kashmiri Writers

The Criterion

The Criterion: An International Journal in English
Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Open Access
CC BY 4.0
Crossref DOI


Memory and Trauma: Experiences of Three Women Anglophone Kashmiri Writers


Ms. Iman Ghosh

Indian Writing in English
Pages 986-1000
Article #61
2026V17N4138

DOI

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.61

Registered with Crossref · Open Access · CC BY 4.0

Abstract

The paper seeks to analyse aspects of trauma and memory in three works by Anglophone women writers from Kashmir, namely, Sudha Koul’s The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kashmir (2002), Asiya Zahoor’s Serpents Under My Veil (2019) and Farah Bashir’s Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir (2021). These writers seek to represent, through their personal experiences, the conflict in the valley as lived by a section of women far removed from the centre of action and experiencing a form of trauma that does not necessarily result from expressly catastrophic events in their own personal lives. Rather, their trauma draws from persistently disrupted lives, a sense of constant apprehension and departure from normalcy that such a context must necessarily involve. While it is common to discuss and theorise on the more explicit forms of violence that occur in conflict zones, the paper argues, through tools of trauma and memory studies, that a specifically gendered form of trauma arises in female subjects through this forced erosion of normalcy and prolonged domestic confinement.

Keywords
conflict in KashmirtraumamemoryAnglophone women’s writing.

Cite This Article — MLA 9th Edition

Ms. Iman Ghosh. “Memory and Trauma: Experiences of Three Women Anglophone Kashmiri Writers.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 986-1000. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.61.

Article History
Received
31 Jul 2026
Accepted
23 Aug 2026
Published Online
31 Aug 2026

Journal
The Criterion: An International Journal in English
Volume / Issue
Vol. 17, No. 4 (August 2026)
Pages
986-1000
Article ID
2026V17N4138
ISSN
0976-8165

Open Access
CC BY 4.0
Crossref DOI

Open Access · CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI ·
the-criterion.com

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