Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (original) (raw)
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Crossroads A Journal of English Studies
In contemporary discourses, the lives of migrants are often marginalised and silenced. For this reason, bringing the theme of migrants’ identities to the foreground in literary research appears to be increasingly important. This article discusses the experiences of Haitian immigrants to the US as nar-rated by the Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat. I explore the theme of making a transnational home in her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) and short stories from the collection Everything Inside(2019). The analysis is based on a combination of two theories: Steven Vertovec’s theory of transnation-alism and Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of narrative identity, which enable interpreting intergenerational identity changes, certain methods of cultural reproduction, and “little” cultural cross-connectedness of “family and household” (Vertovec 2009: 3-18) in the context of personal identity understood as formed through narratives. This article focuses on the transition from a Haitian home ...
(Re)Imagining Haiti through the Eyes of a Seven-Year-Old Girl
Journal of international women's studies, 2016
For many Haitian-born artists from the Diaspora, the process of reimagining Haiti in their work has represented an important space of negotiation. (2) Themes of ancient folk tales, social and political discourses, and migration proliferate as writers attempt to recapture all that has been lost in order to negotiate their hyphenated Haitian identity in the countries to which they have emigrated. Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat is the author of numerous books, which speak to the history and sociopolitical realities present in Haiti's daily affairs, often focusing on national identity, mother-daughter relationships, and diasporic politics. She has received many awards including the Fiction Award from The Caribbean Writer, 1994; the National Book Award nomination for Krik? Krak!, 1995; Best Young American Novelist for Breath, Eyes, Memory by GRANTA, 1996; the American Book Award for The Farming of the Bones, 1999; the National Book Critics Circle Award for Brother, I'm ...
International Journal of Literature and Arts, 2015
The purpose of this paper is to show how psychological trauma resulted from conflicts such as immigration, wars, colonialism, and invasion; and even gender discrimination makes its way into postcolonial children's literature. For example, some contemporary writers of children's literature depict the painful experience of young immigrants who are living under constant stress and tension. Others try to depict how the Middle East conflicts and turmoil affect children living under occupation. In all of these cases, children are highly at risk of psychological trauma. This paper is going to discuss two contemporary children's novels which address the issues of immigration and war conflicts: Marina Budhos' Ask Me no questions [2007], and Cathryn Clinton's A Stone in my Hand [2002]. They were chosen to reflect not only the variety of children's literature available, but also the unique struggles faced by young female protagonists living in two different cultural and political environments. The common thread running through these two novels is the experience of emotional trauma that young protagonists go through. The study of such trauma is at the core of the discussion of both novels. The paper will show how the protagonists of the two novels suffer "a double or triple trauma for children, who may witness the forcible removal of the parent, suddenly lose their caregiver, and/or abruptly lose their familiar home environment" [McLeigh].
The purpose of this paper is to show how psychological trauma resulted from conflicts such as immigration, wars, colonialism, and invasion; and even gender discrimination makes its way into postcolonial children's literature. For example, some contemporary writers of children's literature depict the painful experience of young immigrants who are living under constant stress and tension. Others try to depict how the Middle East conflicts and turmoil affect children living under occupation. In all of these cases, children are highly at risk of psychological trauma. This paper is going to discuss two contemporary children's novels which address the issues of immigration and war conflicts: Marina Budhos' Ask Me no questions [2007], and Cathryn Clinton's A Stone in my Hand [2002]. They were chosen to reflect not only the variety of children's literature available, but also the unique struggles faced by young female protagonists living in two different cultural and political environments. The common thread running through these two novels is the experience of emotional trauma that young protagonists go through. The study of such trauma is at the core of the discussion of both novels. The paper will show how the protagonists of the two novels suffer " a double or triple trauma for children, who may witness the forcible removal of the parent, suddenly lose their caregiver, and/or abruptly lose their familiar home environment " [McLeigh].
LL Journal, 2020
Fresh out of college in 1977, I travelled to Mexico City and met up with a filmmaker. She had errands to run, so to occupy myself and a doctor friend, she dropped us off outside an old house with an enormous patio. "Go in; it's interesting," she said. "I'll pick you up in an hour." Roaming the building, we saw paintings, dust-speckled furniture and horned paper-mâché figures. We were the only ones there, as far as we could tell. The artwork lacked explanatory labels, leaving us ignorant of the creator's background. When the filmmaker came for us, her doctor friend and my fellow viewer said, "I don't know about you art lovers, but I can tell you that the woman (the artist) was in a lot of pain." Without knowing it, we had visited the Frida Kahlo Museum. At the time, the artist was largely unknown. Today, however, that venue ranks as a leading local tourist attraction, drawing about 600,000 people a year, many of them from abroad. "(Kahlo) transformed her pain into art," the museum's director has said. The artist suffered from congenital ailments, polio and a boneshattering bus crash and underwent an estimated 32 surgeries in her lifetime. Her philandering husband, muralist Diego Rivera, also hurt her emotionally. The detonator for the international explosion in Kahlo interest was the 1983 publication of Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, the first English-language account of her life. The 507-page tome has been unequalled since in its scope and extensive documentation. In her research, the author, Hayden Herrera, amassed recollections of more than 70 contemporaries of Kahlo which she contacted.
Processing Trauma: Reading Art in 9/11 Novels
While the negative effects of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 are still permeating throughout the United States, a few novelists have taken on the extreme task of writing about this historic event. Richard Gray describes the failure of language after the attack took place, yet novelists wanted to write about this tragedy anyway. Reading trauma in 9/11 is inevitable as it is important. In looking at three novels that deal with the events during and the aftermath of 9/11, I hope to consider the way art is used in these texts. In doing so, my thesis will look at the possibility of art being able to heal the wounds of this traumatic event. My second chapter will focus on the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran
Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies
Erika Gottlieb’s narrative is a transgenerational family memoir, a search for identity, and also the testimony of the protagonist Eva Steinbach, the thinly disguised authorial self, a child survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary, which provides a larger historical perspective for the personal narrative written in Canada. The satisfactory completion of the tasks involved in these three strands of Gottlieb’s life writing depends on how successfully memories can be preserved without allowing them to paralyze the remembering subject. Since these three themes are inseparable from each other, they can only result in self-understanding and healing for the author/protagonist if they evolve together. At the same time, Gottlieb’s narrative is intricately linked to her artwork, which calls for an intermedial discussion of the book to reveal how the graphic images further enhance the protagonist’s struggle to comprehend herself. While the multi-layered text is constructed in a non-linear structur...