Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction
In 2010, when The New Yorker published a list of twenty writers under the age of forty who were “key to their generation,” it included five Jewish-identified writers, two of whom—American Gary Shteyngart and Canadian David Bezmozgis—were Soviet-born. This publicity came after nearly a decade of English-language literary output by Soviet-born writers of all genders in North America. Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction traces the impact of these now numerous authors—among others, David Bezmozgis, Boris Fishman, Keith Gessen, Sana Krasikov, Ellen Litman, Gary Shteyngart, Anya Ulinich, and Lara Vapnyar—on major coordinates of the Jewish American imaginary.

Entering an immigrant, Soviet-born standpoint creates an alternative and sometimes complementary pattern of how the Eastern and Central European past and present resonate with American Jewishness. The novels, short stories, and graphic novels considered here often stage strikingly fresh variations on key older themes, including cultural geography, the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, communism, gender and sexuality, genealogy, and finally, migration. Soviet-Born demonstrates how these diasporic writers, with their critical stance toward identity categories, open up the field of what is canonically Jewish American to broader contemporary debates.

This book is also freely available online as an open-access digital edition.
 
1144164795
Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction
In 2010, when The New Yorker published a list of twenty writers under the age of forty who were “key to their generation,” it included five Jewish-identified writers, two of whom—American Gary Shteyngart and Canadian David Bezmozgis—were Soviet-born. This publicity came after nearly a decade of English-language literary output by Soviet-born writers of all genders in North America. Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction traces the impact of these now numerous authors—among others, David Bezmozgis, Boris Fishman, Keith Gessen, Sana Krasikov, Ellen Litman, Gary Shteyngart, Anya Ulinich, and Lara Vapnyar—on major coordinates of the Jewish American imaginary.

Entering an immigrant, Soviet-born standpoint creates an alternative and sometimes complementary pattern of how the Eastern and Central European past and present resonate with American Jewishness. The novels, short stories, and graphic novels considered here often stage strikingly fresh variations on key older themes, including cultural geography, the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, communism, gender and sexuality, genealogy, and finally, migration. Soviet-Born demonstrates how these diasporic writers, with their critical stance toward identity categories, open up the field of what is canonically Jewish American to broader contemporary debates.

This book is also freely available online as an open-access digital edition.
 
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Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction

Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction

by Karolina Krasuska
Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction
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Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction

Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction

by Karolina Krasuska

Overview

In 2010, when The New Yorker published a list of twenty writers under the age of forty who were “key to their generation,” it included five Jewish-identified writers, two of whom—American Gary Shteyngart and Canadian David Bezmozgis—were Soviet-born. This publicity came after nearly a decade of English-language literary output by Soviet-born writers of all genders in North America. Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction traces the impact of these now numerous authors—among others, David Bezmozgis, Boris Fishman, Keith Gessen, Sana Krasikov, Ellen Litman, Gary Shteyngart, Anya Ulinich, and Lara Vapnyar—on major coordinates of the Jewish American imaginary.

Entering an immigrant, Soviet-born standpoint creates an alternative and sometimes complementary pattern of how the Eastern and Central European past and present resonate with American Jewishness. The novels, short stories, and graphic novels considered here often stage strikingly fresh variations on key older themes, including cultural geography, the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, communism, gender and sexuality, genealogy, and finally, migration. Soviet-Born demonstrates how these diasporic writers, with their critical stance toward identity categories, open up the field of what is canonically Jewish American to broader contemporary debates.

This book is also freely available online as an open-access digital edition.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781978832787
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publication date: 07/12/2024
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 205
File size: 10 MB

About the Author

KAROLINA KRASUSKA is an associate professor at the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw, Poland, and a founding member of its Gender/Sexuality Research Group. She is a coeditor of Women and the Holocaust: New Perspectives and Challenges and the Polish translator of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble. 
 

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Soviet-Born Writing
  1. Diasporic Spaces
  2. Redefining Survival
  3. Afterlives of Communism
  4. Soviet Intimacy
  5. Keyword: Migration
Conclusion: Jewish American Literature as a Site of Critique
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 
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