Longing for Belonging: Transculturality and Identity in Two North American Novels

Abstract

The concepts of transculturality and cultural hybridity describe the process of two or more cultures coinciding in a space, whether that be an individual’s psyche, a city, or an entire nation. These concepts explain how, when cultures encounter one another, a cultural genesis occurs. Within North American literature (USA and Canada), a plethora of novels depict the immigrant or refugee experience, showing their characters grappling with the challenges of learning a new culture and creating a sense of home. This paper employs the lens of transculturality and cultural hybridity to better understand how the characters in two novels come to represent (or not) transcultural individuals as they cope with the sociocultural challenges of a transcultural experience.