The paper discusses Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Hwang Sok-yong’s The
Guest, and Comfort Woman and Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller. It focuses on
collective, historical trauma and collective identity as well as the individual
level and investigates how the three authors use supernatural elements
and/or rely on folklore to address unspeakable past atrocities. The paper
also observes how authors and characters function as shamans in the
respective works; as such, their role is to initiate the healing process and
guide the traumatized individuals throughout their respective journeys.
Overall, the paper argues that all four texts center around the necessity
of facing, reclaiming and reconstructing both the individual’s and the
community’s past in order to forge new individual and collective identity
