Crossing Territorial and Biographical Boundaries: Eva Hoffman’s »Lost in Translation« and Irina Grigorescu Pană’s »Melbourne Sundays«
Crossing Territorial and Biographical Boundaries: Eva Hoffman’s »Lost in Translation« and Irina Grigorescu Pană’s »Melbourne Sundays«

Author(s): Corina Anghel Crişu
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Studies of Literature, Romanian Literature
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Summary/Abstract: A close examination of Eva Hoffman’s and Irina Grigorescu Pană’s texts reveals how cultures can be understood and delimited in the case of the polytropic, exiled writer. Read together, the two books demonstrate that exile generates a complex configuration of tropes and ideas that circulate from one text to another, emphasizing their mobility and continuity. In this light, an in-depth analysis of these two exilic texts proves Edward Said’s assumption in The World, the Text, and the Critic that not only theories circulate, but also critical terms (31-53). The paper explores how the two authors reconfigure exilic identity through the intricate process of self-translation within different cultural and geographical contexts. Their intricate narratives involve a variety of competing discourses, playing with Bildungsroman motifs in atypical immigrant scenarios and negotiating innovative transnational, transatlantic female identities.

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