Postkoloniālais feminisms Ingas Gailes prozā: vardarbība un seksualitāte
Postcolonial Feminism in the Fiction of Inga Gaile: Violence and Sexuality

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the features of postcolonial feminism in the fiction of contemporary Latvian writer Inga Gaile. Although postcolonial feminism as a theoretical framework emerges in the 1970s and 1980s along with the works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Audre Lorde, Chandra Talpade Mohanty and others, it has not been used in the analysis of Latvian culture so far. This particular critical theory as the method of analysis approaches literature as a “powerful partner in the work of critique aimed not at the text, but alongside it” (Castiglia 2017: 2018). This does not imply that critical reflections on society and its gender inequalities must be ignored. On the contrary, it supports critical reading and by acknowledging the author’s affective voice tries to conceptualise the space for hope. Inga Gaile’s three novels cover the period of the 20th century in which Latvia was occupied by several colonial powers (tsarist Russia, Soviet Union, as well as Germany), its inhabitants undergo two world wars, being dispersed in different countries and facing challenging situations. The traces of violence can be seen literary on the bodies of women despite the fact that they survived. Their lives show us the choices based on their desires, beliefs and preferences which can be described from the feminist standpoint. The sexuality of heroines – ignored and neglected, also blamed and damned – forms an important aspect of their lives, asserting the agency of women even under the conditions of patriarchal dominance

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