Close Encounters in War Journal (Dec 2020)

‚During a period of total despair, I picked up a pen‛: Exploring Trauma, Writing and Healing in A Soldier’s Song, Ken Lukowiak’s Falklands War Recollections

  • Andrea Roxana Bellot

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3
pp. 23 – 41

Abstract

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This paper aims to explore the connections between textual expression and traumatic recollection in Ken Lukowiak’s Falklands War memoirs, A Soldier’s Song (1993). Private Ken Lukowiak was a member of the Second Battalion Parachute Regiment of the British Army deployed to the Falkland Islands for the 1982 British Argentine conflict. After suffering a long depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the veteran’s creative drive motivated him into writing down his memories, to help him overcome his war traumas. He needed an organized, written account of his daily experiences during that time to make sense of the war, to understand what he had been through, to heal and move forward.

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