Transatlantic Women’s Literature

Transatlantic Women’s Literature is a valuable contribution to the evolving debate surrounding Transatlantic Studies and transatlantic literature. Its originality and importance lie in its focus on 20th century women’s narratives of travel and adventure, and its deliberate expansion of the Transatlantic concept beyond the familiar US-UK axis to include Canada, South America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. The crisscrossing of the Atlantic is contested and problematised throughout. The book explores culturally resonant literature that imagines views from both sides and examines the imaginary, in-between space of the Atlantic. It offers a considered exploration of the way in which the space of the Atlantic-and women’s space-work together in the construction of meaning in transatlantic texts. Focusing on contemporary literature, this book engages with a range of genres, from novellas and novels to essays, memoirs, and travel literature. Nella Larsen’s Quicksand is read alongside Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine in relation to constructions of the exotic; Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation is explored in relation to memoirs of travel such as Jenny Diski’s Skating to Antarctica and Stranger on a Train; and Anne Tyler’s transatlantic novel The Accidental Tourist is read alongside her latest transpacific novel, Digging to America as well as Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune. Readers will gain an appreciation of the complexity of the transatlantic narrative and the ways in which these narratives are defined by and infused with gender considerations.