• autobiography
• grief as trauma
• grief memoir
• Helen Macdonald
• intertextuality
• Joan Didion
• Jonathan Raban
• Paul Auster
• trauma theory

The present dissertation focuses on grief memoirs, a subgenre of life narratives in which the autobiographical subjects deal with the loss of a loved person. By using a case study approach, this work aims at reading and interpreting a selection of memoirs, written by both English and American authors, through the lens of trauma theory. Each of the four memoirs (Paul Auster's "The Invention of Solitude", Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking", Jonathan Raban's "Passage to Juneau", and Helen Macdonald's "H is for Hawk") is written in the wake of a familial loss, and displays evidence of contamination between genres. With reference to trauma theory, this dissertation argues that the formal and aesthetic features of these texts constitute a response to the loss that these authors experienced. The close readings also put particular emphasis on the issues of testimony and witnessing, and on the way in which they are played out in each book's narrative. Furthermore, the use of intertextuality is also investigated, for the way in which it is exploited by the authors throughout the grieving process as a means to simultaneously establish empathy and find solace.