When death feeds creativity

How to live with the dead? A PhD candidate in literature shares her reflections on death, identity, geography and culture. "In the current era of easier mobility and widespread migration, how do we stay connected to those who have died before us? Is it enough to carry them in our memory? Should we make room for them in our physical space or just in our imagined world?" These are the questions that haunt Martyna Kander, a PhD candidate in research and creation in Université de Montréal's Department of French Literature. Working under the supervision of professors Catherine Mavrikakis and Olga Nedvyga, Kander is focusing her research on the confluences of identity, belonging, diversity, memory and enracinerrance - a French portemanteau coined by Haitian writer Jean-Claude Charles that combines enracinement and errance (roots and errantry). This concept resonates with Kander, who was born in Poland, has Ukrainian and Lithuanian grandmothers, grew up in Italy, speaks French and now lives in Montreal. Drawing on the cultural syncretism in her own life story, she is currently working on a novel that examines the geographical aspect of death. "Burying the dead is a ritual as old as humanity itself, perhaps because we tend to assign the deceased to a fixed geographic location," said the writer. "But what happens when we have connections to several countries and cultures? How can we keep those who have passed close to us?" In her novel, Kander's protagonist-an Italian orphan who moves to Montreal-reflects on her past, the loved ones she's lost and the women from centuries past who helped shape her identity.