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.
Migration fiction moves on
July 30, 2008
