Travel and “Homing In” in Contemporary Ethnic American Short Stories

Jadwiga Maszewska

doi:10.2478/v10231-012-0067-2

Authors

Jadwiga Maszewska University of Łódź

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/v10231-012-0067-2

Abstract

In American ethnic literature of the last three decades of the 20th century, recurrent themes of mobility, travel, and “homing in” are emblematic of the search for identity. In this essay, which discusses three short stories, Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Louise Erdrich’s “The World’s Greatest Fishermen,” and Daniel Chacon’s “The Biggest City in the World,” I attempt to demonstrate that as a consequence of technological development, with travel becoming increasingly accessible to ethnic Americans, their search for identity assumes wider range, transcending national and cultural boundaries.

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Author Biography

Jadwiga Maszewska, University of Łódź

Jadwiga Maszewska is Head of the Department of American Literature and Culture, University of Łódź. Her areas of special interest are contemporary Native American and Chicana/o literature. She is the author of Between Center and Margin. Contemporary Native American Women Writers: Leslie Marmon Silko and Louise Erdrich (2000). Together with Zbigniew Maszewski, in 2007 she edited a volume of essays in honor of Agnieszka Salska, Walking on a Trail of Words. Jadwiga Maszewska has lectured in the U.S., Japan, Turkey, and several European countries.

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