The Trauma of Passage and Nostalgia of Return in Selected Arab- American Short Stories (Published)
The current paper investigates the experiences of passage and home nostalgia in four selected Arab-American short stories. These short stories are: O’Lebanon, by Evelyn Shakir, Death and Lebanon, by Barbara Bedway, The Calling, by Nahid Ratchlin, and The Top, by Kaldas Pauline, all which represent three different angles of indigenous cultures in Lebanon, Iran, and Egypt. The four stories celebrate the trauma of ‘transition’ in the light of Arnold Van Gennep’s and Victor Turner’s concepts of passage and transition. Nostalgia of return is approached under the concept of Svetlana Boym’s ‘reflective nostalgia’. The four stories involve home nostalgia as a common trait which colours their symbols of behavior and draw their maps of transition.
Keywords: Hybridity, Liminality, Neophytes, Nostalgia, Transition