Buchi Emecheta's 'London Novels'
Beschreibung
Susanne Pichler
Buchi Emecheta's 'London Novels'. An Intercultural Approach
ISBN 978-3-88476-474-9, ISBN 3-88476-474-8, 276 S., kt., € 27,00 (2001)
(Reflections - Literatures in English outside Britain and the USA, Bd. 11)
Focusing on the Igbo-born, internationally renowned transcultural woman writer Buchi Emecheta, this study offers the first in-depth analysis of Emecheta's 'London novels', in which the author is particularly concerned with the question of culture contact, exchange of cultural standards, and the intercultural interaction of individuals from collectivist and individualist cultural backgrounds. In this context, comtemporary issues like migration, emigration, immigration, alienation, un-belonging, em-placement, in-group/out-group dichotomy, culture shock, acculturation, the construction of an alter-Nation, i.e. a reconsideration of 'Englishness', interrelation of 'race', class and gender, concepts of 'home', stereotyping and racism – all of which are so central to Emecheta's oeuvre – are emphasized. Emecheta's immigrant characters, as shown in this study, need to belong to a cultural environment other than their original one. They have to re-negotiate their roles and statuses in the host society, and within the existing community structure, re-negotiate old norms and new contextes and re-negotiate their shifting, unstable identities within a tranforming culture. Combining current trends from the wide fields of literary as well as cultural studies, this book provides the reader with completely new, exciting and challenging insights.