"Home to Harlem, away from Harlem": transnational subtexts in Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem

Title: "Home to Harlem, away from Harlem": transnational subtexts in Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2014, vol. 40, iss. 2, pp. [109]-121
Extent
[109]-121
  • ISSN
    0524-6881 (print)
    1805-0867 (online)
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
Heeding Brent Hayes Edwards 2003 call to re-examine African American writings of the early twentieth century within the context of emergent transnational sentiments, this article explores the literary depictions of transmigrant characters in Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem (1928). Written and set during the volatile interwar years, Quicksand and Home to Harlem complicate and expand upon Randolph Bourne's "Trans-National America" (1916) and Alain Locke's "Harlem" (1925) by exploring how the transnational experience of moving away from, into, and between communities transforms existing identity concepts and creates spaces for the generation of self-definitions that are not bound by traditional notions of national and racial belonging.
References
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