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Transnationalism in Contemporary Post-Soviet North American Literature
Ist Teil von
Twentieth century literature, 2019-03, Vol.65 (1-2), p.145-166
Ort / Verlag
Duke University Press
Erscheinungsjahr
2019
Quelle
Duke University Press
Beschreibungen/Notizen
This article argues that there are two major strains of transnationalism in works by Russian-speaking North American writers David Bezmozgis, Ellen Litman, and Gary Shteyngart. Bezmozgis and Litman focus on localism, and their short story collections
(2003) and
(2007) are set in specific North American immigrant neighborhoods: Bathurst Street and Steeles Avenue in Toronto for
, and the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh in
. These stories describe the deterritorialization of Russian culture and the spread of Russian corruption abroad through a focus on immigrants and their visitors. Bezmozgis’s and Litman’s characters are prevented from going back to former Soviet Republics by their intense dislike of the moral corruption in their former homeland. In
(2006), by contrast, Shteyngart depicts a transnational, multicultural, and morally ambivalent world in which his protagonists travel between Russia and the United States, bringing US American culture and consumerist artifacts to Russia.