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Commuters, Wanderers, And 'International Mongrels': Resistance And Possibility In Post-Immigrant Literature, Leslie Singel

Theses and Dissertations

The recognizable motifs of the immigrant tale have been upended, as the traditional

narrative has been adapted to capture the multitude of directions, individuals, nations, and paths

of the twenty-first century migrant. In four chapters, I examine selected works from the authors

Colum McCann, Junot Díaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to argue for a new

designation, “post-immigrant literature.” Post-immigrant literature treats critically the themes of

loss, regret, and forced assimilation from perspectives shaped by post-colonial, post-modern and

post-identity politics thinking. Rather than narratives stressing the limitations imposed by

deterministic social forces, post-immigrant texts posit more agency, and anxiety, …