The Literary Odyssey: A Journey Through the World of Books

In December 1997, an unknown Chinese American author named Iris Changpublished The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War Two. Herpassionate but error strewn account of a sixty-year-old episode of Asian politicalviolence was a spectacular success, with over half a million books sold. Thisthesis asks why. Why that piece of history; why that moment; and why thatauthor and that book? It argues the most compelling answers to these questionsare found if the situation is viewed through the paradigmatic lens of trauma.It therefore offers a theoretical reading of this important historical moment, utilising key theorist, Jeffrey C. Alexander's social theory of cultural trauma. Itexamines parallel historical and social processes in China and the West - centredon trauma, representation and identity - which it argues Iris Chang connectedso profoundly with her book. It claims that The Rape of Nanking is structured toutilise a framework of traumatic understanding constructed around theHolocaust, the defining trauma of the epoch. This allowed her narrative to beread and easily decoded by its audience in the now familiar register of trauma.