Routledge Exile in Global Literature and Culture: Homes Found and Lost

Prompted by centuries of warfare, political oppression, natural disasters, and economic collapses, exile has had an enormous impact not only on individuals who have undergone transplantation from one culture to another but also on the host societies they have joined and those worlds they have left behind. Written by prominent literary critics, creative authors, and artists, the essays gathered within Exile in Global Literature and Culture: Homes Found and Lost meditate upon the painful journeys―geographic, spiritual, emotional, psychological―brought about due to exilic rupture, loss, and dislocation. Yet exile also fosters potential pleasures and rewards: to extend scholar Martin Tucker’s formulation, wherever the exile might land in flight, he bears with him the sweetness of survival, the triumph of transcendence, the luxury of liminality, and the invitation to innovate and invent in new lands. Indeed, exile embodies both blessing and curse, homes found and lost. Furthermore, this book adheres to (and tests) the premise that exile‘s deepest and innermost currents are manifested through writing and other artistic forms. Review We are a nomadic species, constantly driven towards wanted and unwanted horizons by war, famine, and persecution of all kinds, but also by a need for change. This formidable collection chronicles our ongoing displacements and, by asking where we are going and why, makes us reflect on who we are and who we dream of being. In these times of global upheaval, this book is essential reading. -Alberto Manguel, Argentinian-Canadian-French polyglot, author, critic and intellectual. He is formerly the director of the Argentine National Library, and a modern-day Borges.   Exile in Global Literature and Culture is a deeply thoughtful collection of pieces by scholars, writers, and artists, whose first-hand and more distanced accounts of exile eloquently speak to the geographical and psychological condition of the dispossessed, the uprooted, and the displaced and to the generational impact and inheritance of a legacy of exile. Together these chapters are a register of loss but also a testament to recovery, endurance, and return, a stunning tribute to the ability to negotiate disparate worlds. -Victoria Aarons, noted author and scholar in Jewish and Holocaust Studies. She is the O.R. and Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor of Literature at Trinity University in San Antonio Texas.     In this intimate and moving exploration of the meaning of exile, a brilliant group of international authors ponder where to look for home in our age of displacement. An important and timely book that will resonate with readers around the globe. -Ruth Behar, Cuban-American thinker, poet and anthropologist, and a MacArthur Fellow. She currently holds the Victor Haim Perera Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. About the Author Asher Z. Milbauer is Professor of English and Founding Director of the Exile Studies Certificate Program at Florida International University. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington. His publications pertaining to exile and its consequences include a book on literary transplantation, Transcending Exile: Conrad, Nabokov, I. B. Singer; a co-edited collection of original essays, Reading Philip Roth; an extended essay on exile and return, "Eastern Europe in American-Jewish Literature"; and another piece, "Life Encounters: Reflections on Elie Wiesel." He has also co-authored two other essays, "The Burdens of Inheritance" and "The Reluctant Witness," both of which treat significant aspects of exilic experience. His scholarly/experiential essay, "In Search of a Doorpost: Meditations on Exile and Literature," won the Sarah Russo Prize for an Essay on Exile. He was recognized as an "FIU Top Scholar" in 2015. James M. Sutton is Associate Professor of English at Florida International University. He has taught in England, Italy, and Slovenia.