The migrations of the 20th century have long provided rich pickings for literature—including around half of the winners of the Booker prize since its inception. Yet, argues Kamran Nazeer in our lead review this month, social and technological change are ushering in a new era that art has only tentatively begun to explore: a world of shared, instant information, greater mobility and awareness on the part of most immigrants, and with few of the seemingly irreversible dislocations of 50 years ago.
Comparing Eva Hoffman’s 1989 memoir of her 1959 departure from Poland for Canada, Lost in Translation, with her recent novel of a 21st century migrant in Europe, Illuminations, Nazeer explores this transition and its consequences for writers—the new challenge they face; the loss of the binary oppositions so central to older works; and the newer, subtler traumas to be explored today.
As ever, share your own thoughts and experiences below.
I find it interesting that within this large world of ‘migration literature’ there seems little if any which addresses the experiences of the indigenous populations who are so dramatically affected by the large scale migrations of the last 50 or so years. Where is the novel or drama which gives expression to their sense of dislocation, loss of identity and sense of self which surely must occur at some level and to some degree? I wonder, is it more painful to feel a foreigner in someone elses country or your own? We don’t know, because no one writes about it.