"Is it alright if I cry?": considering (un)grievability through intermediality in Nina Bunjevac's Fatherland

Abstract

<p> In Fatherland (2014), Nina Bunjevac reconstructs the tragic life story of her father Peter, an ultranationalist terrorist, who died in 1977. The narrative of Bunjevac’s graphic memoir revolves around the father’s life and death while placing his fate in the contexts of the tumultuous political history of the former Yugoslavia and the Yugoslavian diaspora in North America. Photographs and other intermedial elements play a central role in Fatherland, both visually as well as in regard to the narrative. In this article, the focus is on the ambivalent grievability of the father in light of Judith Butler’s theory of ungrievable lives. The analysis discusses how Peter Bunjevac’s grievability is approached and unravelled through different functions of intermediality. <br></p>