The dilemmas between memory and History in Ya Mariam, a novel by Sinan Antoon

Abstract

In this essay, we analyze how Ya Maryam ‘Ave Maria’ (2012), by Sinan Antoon, through the memory of his characters, proposes to reconstruct fragments of the History and understand its developments in Iraq, which resulted in the disintegration of the country. In this novel, the Iraqi Christian author weaves the reality of a typical Baghdadi family and gives voice to the Christian minority, which is a victim of the sectarianism perpetrated by religious intolerance since the dictatorial regime in the country was imposed by the rise of Saddam Hussein, in 1979. In this artistic intervention that is shaped by the memory of two subjects who represent different generations, Antoon places us in the ideal space for versions of the same story to be confronted. As narrated from different perspectives, it becomes a valuable exercise of consideration about the politics of memory and its vertiginous effects on society since it destabilizes certainties and stable images of the past.