Postmemory and the Partition of India

“The book presents a rich and multi-layered look at the 1947 partition of India, asking whether, how, and why the disruption and atrocities that partition imparted should be remembered. It is an eloquently written, deeply felt, and nuanced account of partition and its sequalae, not focused primarily on historical facts, but on the meaning of lived experiences at the personal, community, and cultural levels.”– Michelle D. Leichtman, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, USA This book examines the memories of the Partition of India in 1947 with a focus on the generation of postmemory (those who came after it) and how partition experiences have been shared (or not) and understood. It explores the formal and narrative properties of different memory practices that have been built around the partition, and the methods of oral historians involved in collecting testimonies as part of the 1947 Berkeley partition archive. Shuchi Kapila is Professor in the Department of English at Grinnell College, USA, where she teaches postcolonial literature from Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia. Her book Educating Seeta: The Anglo-Indian Family Romance and the Poetics of Indirect Rule was published in 2010.