Autor: Paulína Šedíková Čuhová (Katedra germanistiky, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici)

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4158-3532

Jazyk: slovenčina

Bibliografické údaje: Litikon, 2025, roč. 10, č. 2, s. 45 – 52

Bibliografické údaje (ENG): Litikon, 2025, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 45-52

Abstrakt (ENG):

This article examines Nino Haratischwili’s The Eighth Life (for Brilka) as a key example of the contemporary generational novel, focusing on narrative strategies, memory, and gendered narration. Drawing on theories of generational storytelling and postmemory, it analyses how individual life stories intersect with collective historical trauma shaped by twentieth-century Georgian and Soviet history. Central to the analysis is the female narrator Nica, who occupies a dual role as both participant in and mediator of intergenerational memory. The study interprets the metaphor of the carpet as a structural model of memory, emphasizing its layered, non-linear, and recursive organization. Female characters function as narrative nodes that preserve, transmit, and reinterpret family history, while the recurring motif of the “magical” chocolate disrupts linear temporality and reinforces cyclical patterns of trauma. The article argues that the novel constructs memory as a dynamic narrative practice that challenges linear historiography and foregrounds the openness of the future.

Keywords:

Nino Haratischwili, novel, postmemory, carpet, narration

DOI:

PDF