Overcoming Traumatic Experience in Zdenko Lešić’s Polydiscursive Novel: About Tara as Practice of Compassion

Abstract

Zdenko Lešić, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's most prominent literary theorists, published two novels in the period following the war: Sarajevo Tabloid (Split 2001) and About Tara (Sarajevo 2004). While the first novel, in the words of the author himself, can be read as a „contemplation of eternal human suffering, which tragically repeated itself in besieged Sarajevo” (2015:283), About Tara is a tragic family story from the immediate wartime past written through the experience of radical displacement in South Korea and the encounter with the Buddhist teachings. Relying on theoretical works about trauma fiction, this article aims to explore the novel About Tara as a polydiscursive text that reflects upon the possibilities of overcoming a traumatic experience through the Buddhist principle of compassion (karunā).