Summary

In the present study, transculturality serves as a methodological point of departure for the analysis of the works of authors with a Hungarian cultural background for whom being influenced, at some point in their lives, by more than one culture proved to be a source of literary inspiration. Transcultural writers, as understood in this publication, are authors whose works cannot be unambiguously assigned to a single national literature. They exist in suspension between at least two, and often several, nations, languages, and cultures. Their works create narratives that transcend cultural boundaries and literary conventions and, as such, elude simple classifications, definitions, and traditional descriptive methods.

As a literary-studies perspective, transculturality has been used in this volume to analyze a wide spectrum of texts. These include narratives of migration experience, nomadic and travel stories, works devoted to the process of acquiring a foreign language as a tool of communication and literary creation, stories that come to terms with the past of protagonists/authors and their ancestors, texts describing the experience of otherness, and narratives depicting life in a multicultural environment. Despite the thematic diversity of the analyzed works, they share many points of convergence. Similarities are visible above all on the thematic level, most often connected with the situation of a protagonist functioning in a borderland space, using a foreign language and experiencing a sense of exclusion resulting from ethnic difference. Significant parallels can also be found on the formal level: in the structure and language of the works (their hybridity and polyphony), as well as in the narrative solutions favored by transcultural authors, especially the frequently used first-person narration. Demonstrating these and other similarities was one of the principal aims of this book.

The study consists of an introduction, seven chapters, an afterword, and supplementary materials closing the book: acknowledgements, portraits of the authors discussed, a bibliography, and summaries in English and Polish.

Chapter One – Elméleti megfontolások (Theoretical Considerations) – discusses the key concept of transculturality, raises questions about the usefulness of this methodological perspective in literary studies, and presents the state of research on transculturality in Hungarian literary scholarship. The reflections presented in this part of the study, particularly in subsection 1.1. – A transzkulturalizmus: fogalomtörténet és metodológia (Transculturality: Conceptual History and Methodology) – lead to the conclusion that transculturality as an analytical category is not limited to describing a single type of text, just as there is no single definition of transcultural literature that would be binding for all scholars. Transcultural writers are referred to as “mobile authors,” who are not tied to one place or language, live in a transcultural space, and express this in their work (Arianna Dagnino’s definition); as migrant authors who, for various, often purely pragmatic, reasons write in the language of the host country while not forgetting their roots and frequently returning to their homeland in their works (Hajnalka Nagy’s definition); and as writers belonging to national minorities (Zoltán Németh’s definition).

In the broadest possible understanding of the term, and in the sense adopted in this volume, the essence of transculturality lies in crossing the boundaries of a single culture treated as monolithic and in focusing on what happens in the cultural borderland, at the intersection of (at least two) cultures, languages, and literatures. However, finding oneself in a so-called transcultural situation should not be understood as a simple crossing of a border or as residing partly in one environment and partly in another. Rather, it involves questioning one’s sense of belonging, living “in between,” in suspension, in a culturally non-homogeneous and ambiguous space, which may be a source of anxiety and instability or, conversely, may give a sense of unlimited freedom.

Subsection 1.2 – A transzkulturalizmus fogalmának értelmezése a magyar irodalomtudományi diskurzusban (Interpretations of the Concept of Transculturality in Hungarian Literary Discourse) – presents the state of research on transculturality in Hungarian literary studies. The findings discussed here show that the interests of scholars focusing on this issue are very broad and include the following areas: bi-, multi-, and translingual literature; (e/i)migration literature; minority literature; issues of multilingualism in transcultural texts (including linguistic hybridization); questions of the heterogeneity of the cultural identities of authors and protagonists; the problem of memory and postmemory; as well as the reception of transcultural literature and its place in national literary canons. An important element of theoretical reflection is also the concept of a transcultural literary history.

Moreover, an analysis of Hungarian research and scholarly works on transculturality allows one to conclude that in Hungarian literary studies the terms transculturality and transnationality are almost universally used interchangeably, and are sometimes unreflectively equated with multi- and interculturality. This suggests that despite the undoubtedly intensive development of transcultural studies in Hungary, the category still functions in literary discourse as a relatively new concept, not fully stabilized and defined rather intuitively.

The next five chapters are analytical in nature and include detailed discussions of selected works by transcultural authors originating from the Hungarian cultural sphere. In this part, the research material is organized according to thematic criteria – covering issues and motifs most frequently addressed by transcultural authors of Hungarian origin, such as mobility, memory and postmemory, language, and motifs of eating and not eating – as well as according to genre criteria, including, among others, transcultural popular literature.

Chapter Two – A mozgásban: a nomádok, az utazók és a migránsok történetei (In Motion: Stories of Nomads, Travelers, and Migrants) – is devoted to the analysis of works in which the central motif is “being in motion.” Three prose works serve as examples of so-called transcultural identity narratives. Melinda Nadj Abonji in Fly Away, Pigeon3, (Tauben fliegen auf4), Ilma Rakusa in Mehr Meer5 (More Sea) and Ildikó Noémi Nagy in Urban Nomad6 create female protagonists who remain in constant motion, literally or metaphorically. Their journeys are usually forced by circumstances and lead in different directions, yet ultimately they are less about reaching a specific destination than about searching – for oneself, for the meaning of life, for identity. All three works draw on the conventions of the autobiographical novel, as manifested in first-person narration and a distinctly confessional character.

The motif of travel also appears in the work of David Szalay, whose Turbulence is analyzed in subsection 2.3. – A mozgásban levés mint transzkulturális poétika (Being in Motion as a Transcultural Poetics). Here, too, the change of location is not motivated by typical travel impulses such as the desire for extraordinary experiences or the discovery of new spaces. In Turbulence7, travel is essentially an escape, a way to forget problems and temporarily detach from a difficult everyday reality. Szalay’s work is also an example of the so-called poetics of being in motion, expressed through narrative and structural solutions such as multiperspectivity, fragmentary plot, frequent changes of setting, and the multiculturalism of the characters.

Movement, more precisely – migration, finally becomes the starting point for the story of the protagonist of Terézia Mora’s novel Day In Day Out8, (Alle Tage9), analyzed in subsection 2.4 – A migráció mint transzkulturális tapasztalat (Migration as a Transcultural Experience). Mora’s protagonist is endowed with exceptional abilities but is simultaneously marked by trauma, lost and disoriented, and – like the protagonists of the previously discussed works – searches for his own place. The novel is also interesting from the perspective of formal solutions. The author deconstructs the plot order by abandoning chronology and repeatedly employing retrospection, while simultaneously drawing on various narrative models. As a result, the work appears as a “narrative hybrid” – a polyphonic and multilayered text.

Chapter Three – A múltban: emlékezet, posztemlékezet és múltfeldolgozás (In the Past: Memory, Postmemory, and Working Through the Past) – is devoted to the analysis of works whose subject is memory and the process of working through past experiences. The protagonists confront their own pasts and attempt to come to terms with personal traumas, as in Edith Bruck’s Who Loves You Like This10 (Chi ti ama così11) and Lost Bread12 (Il pane perduto13), or they reach back to the experiences of their ancestors in order to face the present, as exemplified by Charlotte Mendelson’s Almost English14 and Sacha Batthyany’s A Crime in the Family15 (Und was hat das mit mir zu tun?16)

An interesting example of transcultural writers engaging with important historical events is provided by the works discussed in subsection 3.4 – Magyar történelem transzkulturális megközelítésben (Hungarian History in a Transcultural Perspective): The Swimmer17 (Der Schwimmer18) by Zsuzsa Bánk and Under the Frog19 by Tibor Fischer. The authors return to the events of October 1956 not to perpetuate a narrative of heroic uprising, but to draw attention to those whom so-called grand history usually deprives of a voice – unwitting participants and victims of events. This way of portraying the Hungarian uprising can be regarded as an attempt to demythologize this event of exceptional importance for Hungarians.

Chapter Four – A nyelvben: a nyelvváltás stratégiái és szövegalakzatai (In Language: Strategies and Textual Forms of Language Change) – consists of two subsections. The first is devoted to Edith Bruck, a Hungarian-born Jew who, after traumatic experiences of the Holocaust and multiple migrations, began writing in the language of the country where she ultimately settled – Italian. The second subsection concerns Agota Kristof, a Francophone author who, after emigrating from Hungary in 1956, settled in a small town in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

Both Bruck and Kristof are counted among the authors of so-called translingual memoirs – works documenting the process of changing the language of writing. Both employed an extremely restrained style, devoid of unnecessary ornamentation that might unduly “burden” the message. Such linguistic shaping of the texts corresponded to the phenomena described: in Bruck’s case, it was connected with rejecting a traumatizing mother tongue and adopting a language “free of the past,” whereas in Kristof’s case it was linked to the loss of the mother tongue and the adaptation of the so-called hostile language as the language of literary creation.

Chapter Five – A tányéron: a(z) (nem) evés és a transzkulturális identitás (On the Plate: (Not) Eating and Transcultural Identity) – focuses on the motif of food, which fulfills many functions in transcultural literature. It becomes a vehicle of time, a carrier of nostalgia for bygone years, and an expression of longing for lost flavors that evoke abandoned places, past experiences, and people absent from the protagonists’ lives. In almost all analyzed cases, however, food primarily serves to sustain, construct, or reconstruct the characters’ identities. This phenomenon is particularly evident in Viviane Chocas’s Bazar magyar20 (Hungarian bazaar) and in Krzysztof Varga’s so-called Hungarian trilogy21. In both cases, the motif of food is central, which is reflected already at the structural level – the chapter titles refer, more (Varga) or less (Chocas) metaphorically, to well-known dishes of Hungarian cuisine. Ultimately, however, food proves to be merely a starting point for depicting the transcultural identities of the protagonists, who, through flavors known from childhood – both forgotten and rediscovered – attempt to “piece together” their identities like a mosaic.

Chapter Six – Az irodalom peremén: transzkulturális narratívák a populáris és bestseller irodalomban (On the Periphery of Literature: Transcultural Narratives in Popular and Bestseller Literature) – presents the phenomenon of transcultural popular literature. The first subsection focuses on Katarina Durica’s Szlovákul szeretni22 (To Love in Slovak), which serves as an example of the so-called transcultural popular novel. This genre exhibits a number of features typical of both popular literature and transcultural writing: it draws on well-known and easily recognizable genre patterns (such as crime fiction or chick lit); the central conflict of the plot is transcultural in nature; both the main character and secondary characters are presented stereotypically; their portrayals are not deepened and serve to illustrate the value chosen by the author, which in this case is transculturality; most characters possess transcultural potential, having transcultural identities and/or finding themselves in situations that can be described as transcultural; and, in addition to entertainment, one of the important aims of the so-called transcultural popular novel is to sustain ethnic identity or to question it.

The second subsection reflects on the phenomenon of transcultural bestsellers. In the context of two works by Deborah Feldman – Unorthodox23 and Exodus24 – it seeks an answer to the question of what lies behind the enormous commercial success of transcultural popular literature. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of Feldman’s prose suggest that, alongside the exotic subject matter, the confessional nature of the narration, identity-related themes, and references to the current socio-cultural context, the unequivocally transcultural message of her works had the greatest impact on their exceptionally positive reception.

The final, seventh chapter – A transzkulturális szerzők kanonizációs lehetőségei (The Possibilities of Canonization of Transcultural Authors) – is devoted to considerations of the place transcultural writers occupy in national literatures and their chances of being included in literary canons. Are those who write in languages other than their mother tongues doomed from the outset to exclusion from canons and relegation to the margins of history?

The inquiries presented in this part of the study demonstrate that no unequivocal answer can be given to these questions. On the one hand, it seems undeniable that for at least several reasons the chances of transcultural writers for lasting presence in the memory of national literatures are limited. On the other hand, the reception history of two transcultural authors with a Hungarian cultural background – Edith Bruck and Agota Kristof – shows that their subjective feelings of not occupying a proper place in the literatures of the countries whose languages they write in stand in contradiction to the reception of their works in Italian literature (Bruck) and French literature (Kristof), as well as to the marked increase in interest in their work observed in recent years in Hungary. From yet another perspective, however, this increase in interest has not (so far) translated into the presence of transcultural authors in Hungarian literary-historical syntheses, which, if they address transcultural literature at all, usually do so only on the margins of discussions devoted to authors whose place in the national canon is unquestionable.