New Strangers in Paradise: The Immigrant Experience and Contemporary American Fiction » (New Edition)

Muller focuses on the literature of Holocaust survivors, Chicanos, Latinos, African Caribbeans, and Asian Americans. In the quest for a new identity, each of these groups seeks the American dream and rewrites the story of what it means to be an American. New Strangers in Paradise explores the psychology of uprooted peoples and the relations of culture and power, addressing issues of race and ethnicity, multiculturalism and pluralism and national and international conflicts.. "Examining the groups of immigrants in the cultural and historical context both of America and of the lands from which they originated, Muller argues that this "fourth wave" of immigration has led to a creative flowering in modern fiction. The book offers a fresh perspective on the writings of Vladimir Nabokov, Saul Bellow, William Styron, Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Oscar Hijuelos, Jamaica Kincaid, Bharati Mukherjee, Rudolfo Anaya, and many others. These writers, Muller claims, are nation builders who have transformed and continue to change our national mythology as well as the literary canon.

Library Journal

Muller (English, LaGuardia Coll., CUNY) has written an exciting book about the literature of contemporary immigrants to the United States. Muller discusses the historic and sociological forces that have shaped the country's new demographics, including changes in the immigration laws in 1965 that were especially important--and little noticed at the time. Displaced persons from Europe as well as the Mexican, Caribbean, and Asian diasporas are all described. Some of the many authors discussed are Isaac Bashevis Singer, Oscar Hijuelos, Jamaica Kincaid, Amy Tan, and Bharati Mukherjee. Muller explains the historic hardships and tragedies of the various communities while showing that the literature is surprisingly optimistic. She is especially good at discussing the Spanish and English Caribbean and Asian authors. Recommended for literature and subaltern studies collections.--Gene Shaw, New York P.L. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.