The Writer and the Overseas Childhood

Download or read book The Writer and the Overseas Childhood written by Antje M. Rauwerda and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does Ian McEwan have in common with Barbara Kingsolver? Or The Shack's William Paul Young with The Way the Crow Flies' Ann-Marie MacDonald? All four spent significant portions of their formative years overseas as expatriates; all four are third culture kids. These authors share experiences of cultural and geographical displacement that fracture constructions of home and identity, as their fiction attests. This study surveys 17 authors with "expat" backgrounds to define "third culture literature," a burgeoning yet unrecognized branch of international writing characterized by expressions of dislocation, loss, and disenfranchisement. By explicating how the shared cultural details of these writers emerge in literary themes and images, this work introduces third culture literature as a separate field, reinterpreting the work of major writers from across the globe.