Displacement Stories of Identity and Belonging. Andrea Levy

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       Displacement

       Stories of Identity and Belonging

      Worterklärungen

      von Isabelle Richter

      1. Auflage 1 ^{Version 1} | 2020

      Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Nutzung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen Fällen bedarf der vorherigen schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlags.

      © Ernst Klett Sprachen GmbH, Rotebühlstraße 77, 70178 Stuttgart 2020 Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

       www.klett-sprachen.de

      Worterklärungen von Isabelle Richter

      Redaktion: Paul Newcomb

      Layoutkonzeption: Elmar Feuerbach

      Gestaltung und Satz: Joachim Schrimm, Friolzheim

      Umschlaggestaltung: Eva Lettenmayer

      Titelbild: Getty Images (solarseven), München

      ISBN 978-3-12-579385-9

      eISBN 978-3-12-909103-6

       Contents

       Introduction

       1. Questions of courage and conscience

       Andrea Levy: Loose Change

       Shereen Pandit: She Shall Not Be Moved

       Saeed Taji Farouky: The Rain Missed My Face and Fell Straight to My Shoes

       2. Questions of identity and belonging

       Jhumpa Lahiri: The Third and Final Continent

       Qaisra Shahraz: The Escape

       Abbreviations used in the annotations

abb	abbreviation
adj	adjective
AE	American English
BE	British English
b	born
derog	derogatory (beleidigend)
e.g.	for example
esp	especially
etc	et cetera
fig	figurative
fml	formal
hum	humourous
idm	idiom
i.e.	that is
inf	informal
Lat	Latin
n	noun
old	old-fashioned
opp of	opposite of
pl	plural
sb	somebody
sl	slang (be careful how you use it!)
sth	something
usu	usually

       Displacement Stories of Identity and Belonging: Introduction

      It is a human characteristic (and, many socio-psychologists would even say, necessity) to define ourselves and our identities in terms of both personal development and social norms. But, in the course of modern and eventful lives, our senses of identity and belonging will develop and shift greatly. This process is particularly apparent when people are faced with displacement from the cultures and social environments in which they grew up. In new, multi-ethnic, diverse religious or cultural contexts, this evolution of identity might encounter obstacles and lead to struggles – economic ones as well as ‘mere’ psychological ones, for it is a natural and eternal fact of human existence that people with not much will gravitate towards places where there is more.

      In our post-colonial, globalised world, we constantly meet people who were not born in the town they now inhabit, or whose parents came to this country from a place far away. We have become used to a variety of restaurants in our city centres: Turkish takeaways, Italian pizza joints, Japanese sushi restaurants… Your hairdresser might be French originally, your yoga teacher Indian. And maybe, in a couple of years, you yourself might venture out and settle down far away from the place you originally called home.

      What will await you there? Will you fit in?

      Will the locals be friendly towards you?

      When will you finally call this new place ‘home’?

      This book is a collection of five short stories, written by five authors from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, but which all deal with the concept of displacement and its impact on identity and a sense of belonging. It can be roughly divided into two sections: the first three