The Politics Of Mourning Grief Management in Cross-Cultural Fiction

As international terrorism has become a commonplace phenomenon, a growing body of multiethnic short fiction has turned to depictions of loss and mourning. Characters in short stories and novellas deal with grief in ways that are appropriate to their gender as well as cultural and religious background. Indeed. as Western societies have become increasingly pluralistic, mortuary practices have altered. Mental health professionals who deal with bereaved individuals are becoming increasingly aware of the need to alter their clinical practices in keeping with the cultural and ethnic background of the patients they treat. Yet few have considered the use of global grief pathographies to achieve healing after mass loss. This book suggests ways in which the Literature of Loss, both mainstream and noncanonical, might become a part of the counseling techniques, employed by psychotherapists to enable patients to identify with examples of literary bereavement, and through analysis of the situations described, might find healing. Rochelle Almeida teaches at New York University and Fairfield University.