trauma, transgenerational and intergenerational transmission of trauma, the Holocaust, Jonathan Safran Foer, postmemory, fragmentation, magical realism, trauma narrative, unspeakability of trauma, phantom pain

Events with a traumatic dimension deviate from the traditional conceptual categories encoded in our capacity to articulate reality. The lack of linguistic means for representing such events creates a challenge for the previous as well as the contemporary generation of writers attempting to visualize and preserve the knowledge of the traumatizing past. This paper focuses on J.S. Foer?s first novel Everything Is Illuminated, which serves as a case study to exemplify the presence of the issues connected to the trauma of Holocaust survivors and the difficulties relating to its representation in the work of art. The concept of postmemory and fragmentation of identity as a product of traumatic experience and subsequent transmission will be elaborated. The paper also emphasizes the most significant themes presented in the trauma narrative-such as the concept of silence and memory-and examines various alternative literary means applied in the novel to approach the past through new modes.