This program originally aired online on November 12th, 2024 at 4:00pm Eastern.
Soviet Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction author Karolina Krasuska in discussion with moderator Josh Lambert. In 2010 The New Yorker published a list of twenty writers under the age of forty who where “key to their generation,” two of whom were Soviet-born; American writer Gary Shteyngart and Canadian writer David Bezmozgis. This sparked a curiosity from Karolina and she began to use these writers materials in her contemporary literature classes at the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw, Poland. She observed her students found connection with the post-socialist identity they shared with these authors. Karolina went on to investigate how various Soviet-born authors work has impacted Jewish American fiction, the bases for her book.
In her research Karolina investigated the process that these Soviet-born writers experienced in order to be published in the United States, each story of selection by agents and publishing houses revealed circumstances of the American literary market, the influence of identity politics, and what an author needed to be or do in order to be published. These Soviet-born authors were all writing about iconic American Jewish themes, but doing something different with it or “with a twist.” Karolina believes that twist is their Soviet-born prehistory of Socialism. The Jewish Soviet-born literature of migration is able to tap into the general conversation of migration in America while also including their lived experience and perspective of Communism. While for many living in the United States who have only experienced American Communism which exists primarily as a theory and a slur.
Topics covered in this program: Mainstream American literature, Jewish American literature, Jewish American culture, identity politics, Soviet Communism, American Communism, Franklin Foer, crisis of masculinity, migration as influence of generating culture, women writers, American literature prizes.
Karolina Krasuska is a professor at the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw, Poland.
Josh Lambert is the Sophia Moses Robinson Professor of Jewish Studies and English at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
