Building Resilience in Lawrence Hill's The Illegal

Abstract

Canadian writer Lawrence Hill's 2015 novel The Illegal provides deep insights into the legal and social restrictions imposed on refugees in their host countries, which often exacerbate their vulnerability. Drawing on Judith Butler's theorizing about the interconnection between vulnerability and agency and recent resilience thinking, this article explores Hill’s literary rendition of how the refugees’ material conditions of vulnerability may trigger forms of agency that result in resilience-building, social integration, and more self-aware and just societies. By examining the interconnection between tropes of vulnerability and resilience in The Illegal, this article posits that Hill’s elaborations on notions of resilience partake in a new post-trauma aesthetics that goes beyond the notions of victimization and inarticulateness – the main focus of trauma theory – to envision new mechanisms for the agency and empowerment of the vulnerable.