ABSTRACT

Helium dramatizes a traumatized witness's attempt to write about India's 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. Depicting his attempt to write an investigative confession of complicity, the novel discloses larger patterns of fantasy, sexual economy, and gender violence that make the pogrom and his own self-story possible. Through a complex narrative framework, Helium shows that unlike legal redress, justice is never present but haunts the present from a future anterior. Helium's literary representations question the idea that literature can document the facts of an historical event so as to raise public consciousness of it, confronting the reader with what remains unsusceptible to narrativization.

摘要

Helium戏剧化地描述了一位受到创伤的证人试图写下印度 1984 年反锡克教大屠杀的尝试。这部小说描述了他试图写一份调查性的同谋供词，揭示了更大的幻想、性经济和性别暴力模式，这些模式使大屠杀和他自己的故事成为可能。通过一个复杂的叙事框架，Helium表明，与法律补救不同，正义永远不会存在，而是从未来的未来困扰着现在。Helium的文学表现质疑文学可以记录历史事件的事实以提高公众对它的意识的想法，让读者面对仍然不易被叙事化的东西。