W spadku po rodzicach

Abstract

Inherited from Parents: Identity Reconstruction Processes in the Narratives of Translingual Writers of Hungarian Origin Translingualism in the context of literature is a phenomenon that describes the works of authors who do not write in their mother tongue. Their works are narratives that transcend the boundaries of cultures and literary conventions and, as such, are not easily definable and analyzable. This fact is often the reason why their works are marginalized. The article is an analysis of works written by two authors of Hungarian origin. The first one, Viviane Chocas, writes in French, while the second, Melinda Nadj Abonji, in German. Both are therefore translingual, although this is not their only point of similarity. Their works are clearly autobiographical and both describe a similar process: that of the reconstruction of Hungarian identity, which was suppressed by their parents or blurred in earlier generations. That fact entitles us to look at their works from the point of view of the so-called post-memory, a phenomenon first described by Marianne Hirsch. In the course of the analyses, it turns out that the protagonists of the discussed works have a different attitude to their parents’ heritage and adopt different strategies of dealing with the past. While Ildikó, the protagonist of Melinda Nadj Abonji’s novel, decides to cut off both symbolically and physically from the past, Klara, from the novel by Viviane Chocas, feels an irresistible urge to learn about the difficult fate of her ancestors.

Keywords

• Hungarian literature
• translingualism
• identity
• postmemory