"22. juli." Litterære konstruksjoner av et nasjonalt traume.

Abstract

Following the right wing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorist attacks on Norway, July 22, 2011, we observe an instant need for literature. These literary responses may be grouped into four main stages. The first is dominated by a collective use of canonical lyrical texts, sung and performed at public ceremonies and funerals. In the second stage, professional authors write and publish newly written poems in newspapers and on the net addressing the grief and the acute call for words in this shocking situation. The third stage represents a short distance response, including the anthology Respons 22 / 7, where authors publish poems and essays as an immediate reaction to the catastrophe. In the fourth and so far final stage, the terror attacks, and their many layered consequences, are integrated in novels, where the real events constitute the context, while the plot and persons are invented. The experience of sharing a common disaster and the feeling of belonging to a national community was repeatedly expressed during the first days after the crisis. This article argues that this way of thinking and feeling also saturates how literature deals with the trauma, although the individual differences are clearly articulated.