How literature can help heal the trauma of genocide

A Literary Studies Convention at The Australian National University (ANU) has heard that art forms addressing trauma can help to recast and even heal collective trauma such as genocide. Senior Lecturer in French at the ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Dr Leslie Barnes looked at how over the passage of time, a memoir and a film about the genocide in Cambodia moved from a place of vengeance to a proposition of forgiveness. The memoir, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, was written by Loung Ung in 2000 and Angelina Jolie's adaptation of that work into the film, First They Killed My Father, was written 17 years later. Dr Barnes said after the passage of those 17 years, the film does not resist the temptation for closure on the genocide. "Since 1979 in Cambodia, the genocide by the Khmer Rouge has been a story of silence. It's been a story of guilt, fear, trauma and recrimination, but it has not been a story that has been shared." "The majority of the Cambodian population is under 30 and they don't know very much about this part of their history. Some of them think it's fiction so that this story has been told in Cambodia by Cambodians and premiered in Siem Reap is a really big deal in itself," said Dr Barnes.