Exile in Global Literature and Culture

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.