Why I Read Other Immigrant Writers
6 Favorite Books by Immigrant Writers
6 Favorite Books by Immigrant Writers
Isn’t it strange how you can spend an afternoon writing something and then, years or months later, completely forget that you wrote it?
This is certainly true of this 2011 post, “Immigrant Lives and Stories: The Ever-Present Past,” from Books in the City.
Although it’s over a decade old, the content rings as true to me now as it did back then.
Here’s an excerpt from this post about immigrant literature and writing:
“For immigrants, I believe that this is how it is. From New York to Hong Kong to London, we live our lives within the shadow of the life left behind. As we walk down a city street, that shadow jimmies and bounces and dances alongside us.
This is why I read immigrant writers.
Not exclusively. But when I read that first scene, there is an automatic reader-writer connection. The words mirror my own dual-realities, my own splintered existence. Quite simply, the literature of displacement makes me feel less displaced.”
My Top Six Immigrant Books and Novels (not in any particular order)
“The Middleman and Other Stories” (Bharati Mukherjee)
“Patsy” (Nicole Dennis-Benn)
“A Distant Shore” (Caryl Phillips)
“The Namesake” (Jhumpa Lahiri)
“The Road Home” (Rose Tremain)
“Walking into the Night” (Olaf Olafsson)
Since I penned this 2011 guest post, I’ve published a collection of personal essays, Green Card and Other Essays which is, of course, all about the splintered existence of living in an adopted country.
Interested in this topic? Read my other blog post, “Writing and Speaking on Immigration.”