Ilan Stavans’s On Borrowed Words , Jewish-Latino/a Writing, and Transnational Autobiography

• Published in: Atlantis (Salamanca, Spain) Spain), 2010, Vol.32 (1), p.87-102
• Main Author: Heide, Markus
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: a literature; a writing; American literature; autobiografía; Autobiography; Chicano; Chicano Literature; Engelska; English; escritores latinos; estadounidense; estudios transnacionales estadounidenses; Ethnicity; etnicidad; Jewish; Jewish-American Literature; Latino; Latino Writing; literatura chicana; literatura judeo; Literature; Litteraturvetenskap; Romance Languages; Romanska språk; transnational American studies; Transnationalism
• ISSN: 0210-6124; 1989-6840; 1989-6840

The article examines Ilan Stavans’s On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (2002) in the light of transnational approaches to American literature and to Latino writing in particular. As a transnational autobiography that not only reflects and comments on experiences in different nations, On Borrowed Words is intertextually linked to different literary traditions of American writing. Stavans’s memoirs trace a journey from growing up in a Jewish family and neighborhood in Mexico City to life as a scholar of Latin American Literature at Amherst College. The memoirs use a multilingual textuality in order to express the simultaneity of being at home in different nations, communities and cultures of the Americas and of the globe. The essay places Stavans’s memoirs at the crossroads of these traditions: American autobiography, Chicano/a literature and Jewish- American writing.