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Global Cultures
A Transnational Short Fiction Reader
Edited Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
Sales Date: 1994-12-09
539 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in
An anthology of 62 stories from around the non-Euro-American world providing new definitions of cultural diversity and commonality and an invaluable tool for teachers responding to the growing need for multicultural literature.
Over the past two decades, sweeping political changes and burgeoning new technologies have resulted in communities being increasingly defined in global as well as regional and national terms. Although the intellectual terra nova of world cultures remains largely uncharted, this anthology of sixty-two stories from around the non-Euro-American world provides what Elisabeth Young-Bruehl calls "an introductory map to the great wealth of literary works now being produced in, at once, the particular settings of the writers' experiences and the global setting."
Young-Bruehl finds that while the cultural diversity the stories exemplify is amazing, so too is the similarity in thematic terms of the concerns that this diversity presents. Thus she organized Global Cultures thematically to highlight and clarify how these worldwide cultures both converge and diverge. A comprehensive general introduction outlines forces behind the transnational approach to literary study and chapter introductions contextualize each story. Stories from India, Cuba, South Africa, and Uruguay are connected by the theme of exile and immigration; tales from Nigeria, Guatemala, Cameroon, and Egypt share a theme of political violence and civil uprisings; works from Taiwan, Chile, Jamaica, and Syria describe commonalities of women facing effects of modernization, prejudice, war, and immigration.
Global Cultures contributes to the fast-growing body of contemporary short fictions newly available in English and is an invaluable resource to meet the need for multicultural literature.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I – BETWEEN CULTURES: EMIGRES, REFUGEES, EXILES
CROSSED CULTURES CREATED IDENTITIES
Leanne Howe (USA – Native American), "An American in New York"
Masahiko Shimada (Japan), "A Callow Fellow of Jewish Descent"
GROWING UP ELSEWHERE
Julio Ortega (Peru; USA), "Las Papas"
Pedro Juan Soto (Puerto Rico; USA), "The Innocents"
Christina Peri Rossi (Uraguay; Spain), "The Influence of Edgar A. Poe in the Poetry of Raimundo Arias"
EXILES
Ross Moss (South Africa; USA), "Exile"
Tony Eprile (South Africa; USA), "Exiles"
GOING HOME AGAIN
Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), "Everything Counts"
Paulino Lim, Jr. (Philippines), "Homecoming"
Aurora Levins Morales (Puerto Rico; USA) "El bacalao viene de más lejos y se come aquí"
Reinaldo Arenas (Cuba; USA), "End of a Story
THOSE WHO STAY HOME
Rohinton Mistry (India; Canada), "Lend Me Your Light"
Ghassan Kanafani (Palestinian), "Letter from Gaza
PART II – NEW NATIONS: NATIONAL LIBERATIONS, CIVIL WARS, APARTHEID
PARABLES
Adewale Maja-Pearce (Nigeria), "Loyalties"
Moacyr Scliar (Brazil), "Peace and War"
Hwang Sun-Won (Korea), "Masks"
Alfonso Quijada Urias (El Salvador; Mexico; Canada), "In the Shade of a Little Old Lady in Flower"
PEOPLE IN WAR
Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), "Girls at War"
Adwale Maja-Pearce (Nigeria), "An Easy Death"
Ndeley Mokoso (Cameroon), "No Escape"
THE GENERATIONAL CIRCUIT OF VIOLENCE
Arturo Arias (Guatemala), "Guatemala 1954 – Funeral for a Bird"
Miriam M. Tlali (South Africa), "The Point of No Return"
Njabulos Ndebele (South Africa), "Death of a Son"
Abdelal El Hamamssy (Egypt), "Dust"
PART III – CULTURE CLASH: MODERNIZATION, URBANIZATION, WESTERNIZATION
PARABLES
Moacyr Scliar (Brazil), "A Brief History of Capitalism"
Saloni Narang (India), "Close to the Earth"
Lizandro Chávez Alfaro (Nicaragua), "Clamor of Innocence"
Carmen Naranjo (Costa Rica), "And We Sold the Rain"
DEVELOPERS
Augusto Monterroso (Guatemala; Mexico), "Mister Taylor"
Leoncio P. Deriada (Philippines), "Daba-Daba"
Michael Anthony (Trinidad), "The Girl and the River"
Epeli Hau'Ofa (Papua New Guinea; Tonga), "The Tower of Babel"
COUNTRYSIDE AND CITY; FAMILY FOREIGNERS
Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), "In the Cutting of a Drink"
Bei Dao (China; Norway), "The Homecoming Stranger"
PART IV – CULTURE CREATION: WOMEN WRITING
PARABLES
Grace Ogot (Kenya), "The Rain Came"
Bessie Head (South Africa; Botswana), "The Lovers"
MEMORIES, FANTASIES, MADNESS
Ai Ya (Taiwan), "Whistle"
Carmen Lugo Filippi (Puerto Rico), "Pilar, Your Curls"
Marta Brunet (Chile), "Solitude of Blood"
Alifa Rifaat (Egypt), "The Long Night of Winter"
Yuko Tsushima (Japan), "The Marsh"
Khalida Hussain (Pakistan), "Story of the Name"
"PERSONAL REBELLIONS
Luisa Mercedes Levinson (Argentina) " The Clearing"
Bertalicia Peralta (Panama), "A March Guayacán"
Hazel D. Campbell (Jamaica), "The Thursday Wife"
MOTHERS
Carmen Lyra (Costa Rica), "Estefanía"
Lake Sagaris (Chile), "The March"
Velma Pollard (Jamaica), " My Mother"
ELDERS
Ulfat Al-Idlibi (Syria), "The Women's Baths"
Roberto Fernández (USA), "Amanda"
PART V – COMPLEX COMMUNICATIONS: BELIEFS, PERSPECTIVES, PREJUDICES
BORDER CROSSINGS
Abd Al-Salam Al-Ujayli (Syria), "Madness"
Leonard Kibera (Kenya), "The Spider's Web"
Clarice Lispector (Brazil). "The Smallest Woman in the World"
CONFLICTING WORLDS
Bessie Head (South Africa; Botswana), "Heaven Is Not Closed"
Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnam), "The Pine Gate"
Xavier Herbert (Australia), "Kaijek the Songman
SPIRIT JOURNEYS
Baha' Tahir (Egypt) "Last Night I Dreamt of You"
Uyen Loewald (North Vietnam; Australia), "Integration"
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
Patricia Grace (New Zealand-Maori), "A Way of Talking"
Jose Emilio Pacheco (Mexico), "You Wouldn't Understand"
Leonico P. Deriada (Philippines), "Ati-Atihan"
Index of Authors and Titles
ELISABETH YOUNG-BRUEHL is professor of General Programs at Haverford College and editor of Freud on Women: A Reader (1990). Her books include Creative Characters (1991), Mind and the Body Politic (1989), Anna Freud: A Biography (1988), and the prizewinning Hannah Arendt: For the Love of the World (1982).
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