ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on novels of the 1960s and 70s that primarily engage with the legacy of the partition through the lens of memory. Rather than representing the experience of widespread massacres and dislocation in the realist mode, writers sought to evolve new representational techniques, as they came to terms with the afterlife of the partition in the two nation states, which in 1971 became three with the formation of Bangladesh. The resistance to working through the memory of the founding trauma mentioned in the previous chapter gave way in such writing to a more nuanced negotiation of individual as well as collective memory, not always predicated on identity politics.1 The residue of historical trauma continued to circulate, nonetheless, often taking disembodied forms.2 Indeed, the possibility of repetition of nightmares of the past continued to haunt the imagination of many writers. The persistence of a form of postmemory amongst writers of the second generation after the partition may be noted as well, as memories of reciprocal violence shaped the consciousness of survivor communities across north India.3
