Politics of grief
Gender, according to Amanda Mauri, is founded upon two pillars: loss and grief. Deftly weaving real-life events with moments from popular culture in a rich, kaleidoscopic prose, The Museum of Missing Girls creates a space for the author to muse thoughtfully on the key questions she proposes. Among other issues, Mauri discusses how feminism might benefit from a politics of grief; interrogates the possibility of subverting fear through art, humour and community; ponders the legacies of social movements whose hunger for resistance was born out of loss; and underlines the importance of the psychological and emotional landscapes of power.
Incorporating a genre-defying mix of essay, fiction and true testimony, the author creates an unflinching hybrid text which swirls around a central ‘secret’ – a traumatic memory which serves time and again as the backdrop to her ideas. Reflections on memory, desire, pain, violence and writing all interact to create a lucid and poignant work, capable of observing the often horrific nature of reality without losing narrative pace.
The Museum of Missing Girls may lead the reader on a journey beset by ghosts and shadows, but it doesn’t shy away from sudden beams of light in the dark.
In the tradition of writers such as Maggie Nelson and Rebecca Solnit, Amanda Mauri has created a book in equal parts challenging, brave and beautiful, which seeks to revindicate the ethics and aesthetics of grief to create new feminist alliances.
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