Those who survive are profoundly altered, finding themselves forced to struggle with fear, guilt, the unbidden resurgence of the past in dream or memory as well as crippling or numbing psychological disorders.
Recovery is uncertain.
The survivor is often unable to even speak of the traumatic event and may seek to erase it from memory. Nonetheless, speaking or telling may be the only way to tame the experience and begin to integrate it into the present life. This panel will examine works by contemporary Japanese female writers engaged in the telling of trauma. In this case a narrative of sexual trauma implies the gendered nature of larger traumatic issues of modernity. Heretofore explorations of trauma have largely concentrated on wartime, and the effects of bodily experience on the male psyche.