From Poland to Canada: Memories of Communist Poland and Migration to Canada in Three Texts by Polish-Born Migrant Women Writers

Q4 Arts and Humanities

Porownania Pub Date : 2022-12-30 DOI:10.14746/por.2022.2.7

Dagmara Drewniak

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Abstract

Canadian ethnic literature has been dominated by testimonies of migrant experience for a long time. Writers of Eastern European extraction, such as Janice Kulyk Keefer, Eva Hoffman, Eva Stachniak, Lisa Appignanesi or Elaine Kalman Naves to mention just a few, have contributed to the vast body of Canadian migrant literature, giving voice to the quandaries of white, invisible minority migration. As it turns out, the latest texts published by Polish-born Canadian women writers also address the issues of migration and the memory of Communist Poland, which the writers left in the 1980s and early 1990s. The aim of this paper is to look at three selected texts: Giant (2012) by Aga Maksimowska, Lemons (2017) by Kasia Jaronczyk and Was It Worth It. Columbus in Jeans (2019) by Liliana Arkuszewska, all of which are debut novels, and discuss their perception and rendition of Communist Poland, which the authors left behind physically and simultaneously struggled to free from mentally. The narratives chosen for this study, despite substantial differences, bear certain similarities in their treatment of Poland as well as become important commentaries on the status of migrant discourses in North America.

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从波兰到加拿大:波兰出生的移民女作家的三篇文章中对共产主义波兰和移民加拿大的记忆

长期以来，加拿大民族文学一直以移民经历的证词为主。东欧作家，如Janice Kulyk Keefer、Eva Hoffman、Eva Stachniak、Lisa Appignanesi或Elaine Kalman Naves等，为加拿大移民文学的大量作品做出了贡献，为白人、隐形少数民族移民的困境发声。事实证明，波兰出生的加拿大女作家出版的最新文本也涉及移民和共产主义波兰的记忆问题，这些作家在20世纪80年代和90年代初离开了波兰。本文的目的是观察三本精选文本：阿加·马克西莫斯卡的《巨人》（2012）、卡西娅·贾隆奇克的《柠檬》（2017）和莉利亚娜·阿库舍夫斯卡的《穿牛仔裤的哥伦布》（2019），所有这些都是处女作，并讨论他们对共产主义波兰的感知和演绎，作者们在身体上和精神上都很难摆脱共产主义波兰。本研究选择的叙事尽管存在实质性差异，但在对待波兰的方式上有一定的相似性，并成为对北美移民话语地位的重要评论。

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来源期刊

Porownania Arts and Humanities-Literature and Literary Theory

CiteScore

0.10

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0.00%

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期刊介绍： The 2019 tercentenary of the publication of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe provides the perfect opportunity to reconsider the global status of the Robinsonade as a genre. Its translations, transformations, and a gradual separation from the founding text by Daniel Defoe have revealed its truly international character, with the term ‘Robinsonade’ itself first used in the German literary tradition and the most enduring narrative structure established not so much by Defoe himself but by J.J. Rousseau and his commentary on Robinson Crusoe in Emile; or, On Education. This issue will address the circulation of the Robinsonade across cultures and national contexts, the adaptability of the form and its potential to speak to various audiences at different historical moments. We invite contributions on all aspects of the afterlives of the Robinsonade across languages and media, with a particular interest in contemporary variations on the theme.