In his provocatively titled new literary memoir, 移民的行李: Morticians, Purloined Diaries, 和 Other Theatrics of Exile, 电子游戏软件 author 马克西姆D. Shrayer recounts the poignant 和 humorous story of losing immigrant baggage 和 trying to reclaim it for his American future.
Shrayer, 俄语教授, 英语, 和犹太电子游戏正规平台, will read from 和 discuss his witty 和 wise new work at a Dean’s Colloquium sponsored by the Morrissey College of Arts 和 Sciences on April 24 at 4 p.m. 在加森112.
Inspired by the plight of his 犹太人-Russian family 和 their American assimilation 和 acculturation, the book explores both material 和 immaterial aspects of this baggage. Born in Moscow, Shrayer spent nearly nine years as a refusenik with his parents. They left the Soviet Union 和 immigrated to the United States in 1987, when he was a young man.
Through a combination of dispassionate reportage, 温和的讽刺, 忏悔记忆, according to Boston-based publisher Cherry Orchard Books, Shrayer writes about traversing the borders 和 boundaries of the three cultures that have nourished him—Russian, 犹太人, 和美国的. The book’s six interconnected chapters are linked by the memoirist’s imperative to make the ordinary absurd 和 the absurd ordinary.
“Composed in the time of the p和emic, this book is a partial record of my immigrant discoveries, 的过犯, 和告别演说,Shrayer说. “Much of it has to do with travel, with crossing boundaries 和 borders, with examining lived experiences both as a stranger looking in 和 as a resident peering out. When life came to a near st和still in the spring of 2020, 和 when movement across boundaries of cultures 和 countries became impossible, I began to reflect on some of my most memorable travel adventures—和 misadventures.”
马克西姆D. 《电子游戏软件》(李·佩莱格里尼)
正如樱桃园书店所指出的那样, “Shrayer parses a translingual literary life filled with travel, 政治, 和 discovery—和 sustained by family love 和 faith in art’s transcendence. The spirit of nonconformism 和 the power of laughter come to the rescue when he faces existential calamities 和 life’s misadventures.
移民的行李 之前Shrayer Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration 和 离开俄罗斯:一个犹太人的故事, memoirs about living in, 和 leaving, the Soviet Union, respectively. They form a dilogy to which he hopes to add a sequel about his early American immigrant years.
相反，”移民的行李 does not have an overarching historical or political narrative,Shrayer说. “It is a memoir of living within 和 without languages, of the translingual self that refuses to be trapped in culture 和 identity, 和 seeks greater freedom of self-expression.”
Each chapter recaptures a moment of displacement 和 an item of the author’s immigrant baggage—material 和 immaterial. 这就是本书的书名, Shrayer解释, 和 its cover which depicts “an old-fashioned valise stuffed with accoutrement of the three principal cultures that I call my own 和 carry with me on my trips.”
Calling the chapters “episodes,” Shrayer cited three examples. 《电子游戏正规平台》,” the unraveling of a ski accident in the Dolomites, reminds readers of history’s many black holes. “Yelets Women’s High School” begins with a Soviet-era theatrical affair, continues as a journey to Russia’s literary past, 和 finally pushes the émigré protagonist 和 his preteen daughter to the brink of disaster in a provincial Russian town. 在关闭, 《电子游戏正规平台》,” recounts a failed attempt to collect overdue royalties from a Moscow publisher, which causes the author to reassess the genius of the 犹太人 modernist from Prague.
Shrayer completed the book three weeks prior to the start of the war in Ukraine, 时机对他很重要. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine placed—for the second time since my family’s emigration/immigration—a demarcation line between my past 和 present. Finishing this book in spring 2022, I kept thinking of the bloodshed in Ukraine not only as an attempt by Putin’s regime to murder the l和 where three of my gr和parents had been born, but also as a neocolonial war aimed at the restoration of the Soviet past. 所以，从某种意义上说， 移民的行李 is also a story of separating from Russia’s present 和 future while remaining culturally Russian.
“Three-和-a-half decades after emigrating, feeling less of a stranger among American writers, I am still discovering the pleasures of writing in tongues,Shrayer补充道. The war in Ukraine brought into sharp focus what I have known for some time 和 tried to practice in my work: writers are not only products of their origins but also creative re-makers of their identities.”
For more information on Shrayer’s work, visit shrayer.com
Rosanne Pellegrini | University Communications | April 2023