| abstract |
The Immigrant Writer consists of a collection of three short stories. Although the stories are semi-autobiographical, they still belong to the realm of fiction,
a distinction that is important to me as a writer. Fiction allows the imagination to soar and the truth to become more palpable. The three stories included here
are in a specific order, tracing the progression of the writer's life starting in his apartment in Brooklyn, his visit to the old country, and finally his presence
in an apartment in New York. As typical of most immigrant writers, these stories straddle two continents. It is in the clash and polarization of the many settings
and characters that something about life and the world is revealed. My attempt is to expose the way family, friends, settings create and re-create who we are.
With all the trouble we go about trying to avoid people and situations, we find ourselves recreating the present through the entanglements and impositions of the
past. The critical introduction exposes the paradoxical concept of the immigrant writer, who, at the very end, hopes to become simply a writer. The research
focuses on Juno Diaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, and John Cheever. The first two are immigrant writers, while John Cheever is the ultimate American writer. The inclusion
of the first two writers helps emphasize the problems (the psychic split, the alienation) the immigrant writers go through as they establish themselves in a new
country. Cheever's presence is like a foil character, exposing the heretical concept of the immigrant writer while emphasizing writerly elements considered to be
the domain of any writer who has been displaced. This research is in conversation with the three writers who have indeed experienced a sense of exile, have been
displaced and have attempted through their writings to expose the world as it unfolds while trying to live and make sense of it. It is from these attempts that
the concept of the immigrant writer emerges.
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