World Literature Studies 2/2023: The Many Faces of Resilience and Healing in Contemporary Narratives

ed. by Ana María Fraile-Marcos, Universidad de Salamanca

Resilience, the capacity to adapt to adversity and rebound, has become a ubiquitous and contested concept, yet approaches to it from the field of literary criticism are still scarce. This issue contributes to filling in this gap by probing current narratives, from which resilience emerges as a central multifaceted paradigm allowing to apprehend contemporary reality and subjectivity. The ten articles gathered here interrogate the global currency of notions of resilience, while mapping an aesthetics of critical resilience that opens new paths to knowledge, hope, and positive agency.

BELÉN MARTÍN-LUCAS
Resilience and healing in the slums of Manila: Merlinda Bobis’s The Solemn
Lantern Maker
MARISOL MORALES-LADRÓN
Embodying the mother, disembodying the icon: Female resistance
in Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary
MIRIAM BORHAM-PUYAL
Nurses, mothers, sisters: Relational resilience and healing vulnerability
in Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder and The Pull of the Stars
LUCÍA LÓPEZ-SERRANO
Subverting resilience in the psychiatric ward: Finding the good death
in Miriam Toews’s All My Puny Sorrows
PETER ARNDS
From defeat to resilience: The human cockroach in world literature after Kafka
SARA CASCO-SOLÍS
Socio-ecological resilience in Sharon Bala’s The Boat People
VICENT CUCARELLA-RAMON
Resilience and ethics of care against racial capitalism in David Chariandy’s Brother
MARTINA HORÁKOVÁ
Words that matter: Yindyamarra, Wiradjuri resilience and the settler-colonial
project in Tara June Winch’s The Yield
SILVIA MARTÍNEZ-FALQUINA
Violence, relation and beauty in Toni Jensen’s “Women in the Fracklands”
KENDRA REYNOLDS
Re-examining the “Hero’s Journey”: A critical reflection on literature selection
for affective bibliotherapy programs on resilience
CHARLES SABATOS
Robert B. Pynsent’s contributions to the study of Slovak literature

The full content of the issue with links to the individual texts can be found HERE.