Authors
Artis Ostups1; 1 Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia, Latvia Discussion
In 2017, American-Latvian author Inara Verzemnieks published her postmemorial work Among the Living and the Dead, which establishes presence of the past as one of its main themes. She depicts time as layered, allowing for the co-existence of past and present through three main forms of presence, namely, figurative, material and affective. Existing research on presence, pioneered by Eelco Runia, has focused mostly on the material presence of the past, linked to concrete objects and places. This paper brings together philosophy of presence and affect theory to account for those instances, represented in Verzemnieks’ book, when certain bodily signs might suggest the return of a traumatic past and invite further interpration from both the narrator and the reader. 
