Haunted by the Past: Understanding History and the Aftermath of War in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the spectral presence of the past in the form of skulls and emotional trauma in a story about a country ravaged by a protracted war. It analyzes Anil’s Ghost (2000), a novel by Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan Canadian writer renowned for constructing revisionist and fictional historiographic narratives. The novel speaks about a phase of the ethno-nationalist civil war in contemporary Sri Lanka, and the article expounds on the deconstruction and understanding of war and history as represented in this piece of fiction. In deprecating a unilateral and cohesive representation of history, the novel presents multiple voices and subverts the notion of a single truth, thereby challenging the unity and logic of representing history in fiction. It also highlights the lingering effects of past violence and buried memories haunting the present for the purpose of closure in the form of splintered personal memories resurfacing at random moments.