Fiction: heritage, choice, creation
Fiction: heritage, choice, creation

Summary/Abstract: Fiction as heritage, choice and creation is not a literary-theoretical thesis, but a conclusion based on a rich corpus of narrative prose. This article aims to systemize different fictional works of migrant literature and problematizes the writing of bi- and multilingual authors. Polyglots, just as those who come to a new cultural milieu, are faced with a choice. Their native language, as the sum of their historical, cultural, intellectual, literary, and imaginary experiences, becomes the heritage that they take with themselves. For writers who inherited more than one language, choosing a language is a matter of free will, whereas the fiction of those who switch languages later usually cannot be traced back to open artistic choice, but rather to a consequence of historical coercion. Regarding this latter category of writers, multiple studies and investigations prove the connection between age and the importance of the acquired linguistic erudition. Younger authors base their literary careers on the newly acquired language, and the authorship of this generation living and creating in the interspace between two cultures has been defined by the cultural identity configured in this new space. The novel crosses national borders, as a consequence of its transnational character – despite its special distinctive features, it cannot be reduced to various national literary histories. The influence of the author, as well as the original and the host media, on the work’s interpretation and evaluation changes considerably. This is the scope of the transliterary system that is established beyond nations and literatures.

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