Reading of novel Ever After of Ashwin Rao by Padma Viswanathan based on critique of intergenerational trauma theory.

Balaev’s critique of the theory of intergenerational trauma in application to trauma narratives, as it conflates the boundaries between individual and collective trauma experiences and reduces “the variety of responses to trauma and the processes of memory and identity formation found in literary representations”. I believe the critique of the intergenerational trauma theory can be very well explored through the reading of the Ever After of Ashwin Rao by Padma VIswanathan, since it depicts individual stories of victims as well as the ‘comparative study of grief’ as collective trauma.