Forgetful Recollections Images of Central and Eastern Europe in Canadian Literature

by Drewniak Dagmara

The present study is an attempt to explore the position of the memory and postmemory of Central and Eastern Europe in contemporary Canadian literature The analysis is inspired by Simona Skrabecs concept of the 20thcentury Central Europe seen as diverse and evolving sspace of dispersion In this context the book situates the novels and memoirs published in Canada at the turn of the 20th and 21st century and written by immigrants and their descendants from Central and Eastern Europe as the texts which try to recreate the images of Old Places filtered through the experience of living in transcultural Canada The analyses of the selected texts by Janice Kulyk Keefer Lisa Appignanesi Irena F Karafilly Anne Michaels Norman Rawin and Eva Stachniak are predominantly based on Marianne Hirschs idea of spostmemory and Pierre Noras sliewc de mmoire These two concepts capture the broad spectrum of attitudes to the past remembering and forgetting and sites of memory as exemplified in the discussed texts While all of the chosen novels and memoirs explore the problem of postmemory and unbelonging caused by immigration poverty and the trauma of World War they try to address the question of identity of immigrants or their descendants created on the border between the memory and postmemory of the past and the contemporary reality of transcultural Canada As a result of this the postmemory and the recreated afterimages of Central and Eastern Europe offer both therapy and consolation as well as testimony to the past and its sites of memory

222 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2014