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Memory, Migration and Literature

More often than not, memory is taken to be the storehouse of past experiences situated in a local context. However, recent theories have moved the focus to the process of memory which, in any present moment, allows the past, collective or individual, to emerge as a construction that works as a strong driving force of identity formation. In this perspective the memory process selects features of the past and turns them into more or less coherent structures, which then will have to be checked out with others in order for them to exercise their role as valid interpretations of the past and building blocks of present and future identity. Memories are therefore dialogical phenomena shaped by discussion, or more broadly by exchanges in various media, concerning the selected features, their configuration and the identities they promote. Today, the globalized flows of migration open up a new set of problems for the understanding of memories and their functions. When migration becomes a dominant experience across the globe, the concepts of locality and of local experiences changes and raise a new question: can we imagine and attach any meaning to globalized memories? Today, a huge amount of literatures from all corners of the world takes issue with this question, the so-called literatures of migration, where the literary imagination suggests answers to the open question of what memory might mean in a globalized world. To address this question, the Greek-Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas’ novel The Slap (2008) and the Australian context will serve as my point of reference.