Letters of transit : reflections on exile, identity, language and loss / edited by André Aciman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Aciman, André.

New York Public Library.

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Exiles.

Emigration and immigration.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

135 pages, 7 unnumbered pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton, [1999]

Summary:

All of the award-winning writers in Letters of Transit have written powerfully on exile, home, and memory, using the written word as a tool for revisiting their old homes or fashioning new ones. Now, in five original essays, they offer moving meditations on these themes.

Andre Aciman traces his migration from his home in Egypt to Italy, France, and the United States and compares his own transience with the unrootedness of many moderns. Eva Hoffman examines the crucial role of language and what happens when your first is lost. Returning to the political themes of his earlier work, Edward Said offers a personal exploration of his conflicting allegiances. Novelist Bhrati Mukherjee analyzes her own struggle with assimilation. Finally, Charles Simic remembers the comedy of bureaucracy he experienced as a sixteen-year-old "displaced person" in Paris after the war, and his thwarted attempts at "fitting in" in America.

Letters of Transit is a wonderful introduction to the works of these extraordinary writers.

Contents:

Editor's foreword: Permanent transients

Shadow cities / André Aciman

The new nomads / Eva Hoffman

Imagining homelands / Bharati Mukherjee

No reconciliation allowed / Edward W. Said

Refugees / Charles Simic.

Notes:

Published in conjunction with New York Public Library.

ISBN:

1565845048

1565846079

OCLC:

41157470