Decolonising Trauma: Cultural Memory in Eliot Pattison’s The Skull Mantra

Abstract

Trauma narratives on Tibet have recently emerged as a significant area of research in both postcolonial and diasporic studies. These narratives often tend to voice the cultural trauma and identity erasure endured by Tibetans under the harsh interventions of the Red Army in Tibet since the 1950s. These narratives depict not only the psychological scars caused on Tibetans by their cultural dislocation but also the Tibetans’ pathways towards the process of decolonisation, healing and cultural reclamation. Eliot Pattison, the American author of The Inspector Shan Series, has been an ardent supporter of the Tibetan cause. In this series of ten novels set in colonised Tibet, Pattison describes the real Tibet under the PRC and the realistic trauma experience of Tibetan natives in their own land. This paper on Pattison’s novel The Skull Mantra is an in-depth study and exploration of the real Tibet – the cultural loss, identity crisis, alienation, intergenerational trauma and resilience as experienced by the Tibetans in their own homeland. This paper will employ the methodology of an in-depth analysis of the novel based on trauma theory, decolonising of trauma theory and memory studies to examine how Pattison has succeeded in depicting the pervasive effects of Tibetan trauma through the protagonist’s journey against the backdrop of Tibet’s sociopolitical and historical landscape.