ABSTRACT. This paper addresses the representation of terror, grief and trauma in Karan Mahajan’s The Association of Small Bombs, both at individual and collective level. It imagines how terrorism, violence, and trauma may be linked in unexpected ways in the various associations artistically dealt with in the complex narrative. Following a catastrophic event, such as a massive terrorist attack, a whole culture would be at risk to suffer cultural trauma. Mahajan, however, focuses on a “small bombing” event that has a lesser effect worldwide, but which affects the lives of an “association” of people including, victims, their close relatives, and terrorists themselves.

Keywords: trauma; intentional fallacy; anti-intentionalism; working through; acting out