Literary Criticism - General & Miscellaneous, 20th Century American Literature - General & Miscellaneous - Literary Criticism, Immigration & Emigration - General & Miscellaneous, Women Authors - American (U.S.) - Literary Criticism, Literary Criticism - U

Transcultural Women of Late-Twentieth-Century U.S. American Literature: First-Generation Immigrants from Islands and Peninsulas

Name: Transcultural Women of Late-Twentieth-Century U.S. American Literature: First-Generation Immigrants from Islands and Peninsulas
Author: Pauline T. Newton
ISBN: 9780754652120

by Pauline T. Newton

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Overview

Pauline T. Newton's study, which includes interviews with six migrant writers, recognizes intersections between restrictive and limiting literary divisions in Caribbean, Asian-American, and ethnic-American narratives, and explores issues of migration and the crossing and (re-)crossing of cultural boundaries. U.S.-American-bound migrant writers, including Judith Ortiz Cofer, Julia Alvarez, Jamaica Kincaid, Shirley Geok-lin Lim and Lan Cao, left their homelands between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s, examining and expressing their migration experiences - namely, the evolution of their transcultural identities as they make the transition from their island or peninsular homelands to the United States - in diverse literary forms, such as the memoir, the personal narrative, and the novel or other fictional forms.

Synopsis

Newton's study, which includes interviews with six migrant writers, examines intersections between restrictive and limiting literary divisions in Caribbean, Asian-American and ethnic-American narratives. Newton (Southern Methodist U.) shows that for American migrant writers and the characters in their fiction, adapting to life in the US is more complicated than simply disengaging from one homeland or culture and blending into another. She contends that the change creates an experience of "islandness," which can signify unity, as well as isolation. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR