Fig. 1 Portrait of John McGahern Fig.

2 Portrait of Julya Rabinowitz

“Amongst Women” (1990) “Splithead” (2019)

John McGahern was born on 12-Nov-1934, in
County Leitrim. His childhood was marked by
poverty, due to his Vienna, Austria, where she
later studied psychology and worked as a therapist.
Writing since she was 6 years old, Rabinowich has
received numerous controversial novel "The
Dark", which was banned by the Irish Censorship
Board. McGahern's literary career began in 1963
with his first collection of short stories,
"Nightlines," and he went on to become one of
Ireland's most celebrated writers.
Julya Rabinowich was born in 1970 in St.
Petersburg, Russia. She was brought up in a
Jewish family, as described in her
autobiographical story “Splithead”. In 1977,
her family immigrated an abusive father, who
was a Garda sergeant, and his mother's death.
He was a primary school teacher but was
dismissed in 1963 to literary awards for her
work, and currently lives in Vienna with her
family.

Gender Identity
Gender is a social construct performed repeatedly through discourse, language and social practices.
(Buttler, 1990)

Intergenerational Trauma
Trauma is not only found in the original violent or abusive event experienced by the individual in the
past, but rather from the fact that it was not fully comprehended and dealt with at the time, and keeps
returning to haunt the survivor later in life. (Caruth, 1996)

"Both grandmothers were elemental forces. I am the child "She could not still needed in the world, that the world
of two permanent children go to bed at night without being would collapse without her, and that she would be given
given an assurance that she was. I grow up.» her proper place." (Amongst Women 57)

Rabinowich, Julya. Splithead (p. 86). Granta Publications.

Kindle Edition.

"Her fear that the past could still be called into the
present, the fear that the terrible punishments and «She critically examines the Jewish bond that ties the
humiliations inflicted by her Rabinowich, Julya. Splithead others. Hers am supposed to has long been broken.»
(p. 83). Granta Publications father would be visited on her
own children, or that some hurtful and inevitable twist of . Kindle Edition.
fate would take them from her." (Amongst Women 47)

"I am straddling the gap ever more precariously. The
continental tables, on each of which I have planted a leg,
drift apart and I’m dismayed that I haven’t mastered the
splits.»
Rabinowich, Julya. Splithead (p. 69). Granta Publications.
Kindle Edition.
"I saw in his eyes the same expectation that I saw in
every man's eyes: the expectation that I should be small
and pretty and compliant, that I should be an object of
desire."
(_________________________________)
 (_________________________________)

"She wondered if the things that happened to them all were
not the things that happened in every family."
(_________________________________)
«Funnily enough, it is primarily leftist intellectuals
who are interested in those who have been sprung from
Communism. My parents take no pleasure in an
attitude of rebelliousness. For them, being
revolutionary meant getting hold of a smuggled copy
of the Bible.»

Rabinowich, Julya. Splithead (p. 58). Granta

Publications. Kindle Edition.
(_________________________________)

References:
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 2nd ed., Routledge, 1999.
Caruth, C. (1996) Unclaimed Experience : Trauma, Narrative, and History, Baltimore, Md. ;: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
McGahern, John. Amongst Women. Faber, 2008.
NYU Arts and Science. "Interview with Julya Rabinowich." Deutsches Haus at NYU, New York
University, 2015, https://as.nyu.edu/research-centers/deutscheshaus/cultural-program/residency-
interviews/interview-with-julya-rabinowich.html. Accessed on 12-Apr-2023.
O’Hagan, Sean. "A family touched with madness." The Guardian, 28 Aug. 2005,
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/aug/28/fiction.features3. Accessed on 12-Apr-2023.
Rabinowich, Julya. “Presse - Julya Rabinowich.” Julya Rabinowich,
www.julya-rabinowich.com/presse.html. Accessed on 12-Apr-2023.
Rabinowich, Julya. Splithead. Granta Publications, 2019. Kindle Edition.