Abstract
In her article "Cooking, Language, and Memory in Farhoud's Le Bonheur à la queue glissante and Thúy's Mãn" Simona Emilia Pruteanu discusses two moments in the evolution of (im)migrant writing in Québec. Abla Farhoud's 1998 novel shows the struggle of Dounia, a Lebanese immigrant living in Montréal, who in her seventies finds a voice with the help of her daughter's writing and starts to reflect on her identity. Themes of language and cooking overlap and reinforce one another and offer a new perspective on memory and the act of remembering. Language, cooking, and memory also intertwine in Thúy's 2013 novel about an immigrant woman's experience, yet Mãn goes beyond the struggle of the "in-between" identity in which a minority culture and language are subordinated to a more powerful one. Making use of what Afef Benessaieh calls "transcultural resilience," Thúy's character achieves a meaningful transformation through reflections which can be described as transpersonal.
Recommended Citation
Pruteanu, Simona Emilia
"Cooking, Language, and Memory in Farhoud's Le Bonheur à la queue glissante and Thúy's Mãn."
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
18.4
(2016):
<https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.2906>
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