VIEWING THE PAST FROM CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Abstract

Abstract

The paper attempts to investigate how literature present and represent the past. In the making of historical fiction, the author sorts out facts and historical materials and then adds imaginative characters or events that liberate the author from historical reality. Thus, it de-familiarizes what is known as history and presented it as fiction. However, it still needs the element of plausibility and verisimilitude to reconstruct it into presentable historical fiction. Voicing the voiceless or rendering the forgotten history can be one of the aims in representing the past. Literature is capable in ordering the chaotic and complex historical facts by presenting some part but as a whole. Thus, it helps to shape the understanding of the past. Many author have endeavored to represent the traumatic past which is known as the blackest historical moment in Indonesia. The tragedy that kills millions of innocent people.  The attempt to represent the past is triggered by the freedom gained along with the fall of New Order regime. Literary works can be one of the ways to understand the complexity of the tragedy.

Key Words: Past, History, Contemporary Literature