Literary Benefits of Linguistic and

Cultural Hybridity

by

Leanne Radojkovich

Writers with two or more

linguistic and cultural identities

have a wide range of storytelling

techniques.

Unique prose styles result from

exposure to dual:

• environments

• behavioural norms

• languages

Knowing two languages means

knowing two syntaxes - leading

to fresh sentence structures.

Time stops when someone dies. Of course it stops

for them, maybe, but for the mourners time runs

amok. Death comes too soon. It forgets the tides,

the days growing longer and shorter, the moon.

Lucia Berlin

"Wait a Minute"

Rhythms of one language

invigorate another.

I was popular in certain circles, says Aunt Rose. I

wasn't no thinner then, only more stationary in the

flesh, Lillie, don't be surprised – change is a fact of

God. From this no one is excused.

Grace Paley

"Goodbye and Good Luck"

"I think the most powerful sounds are...those

childhood voices... Russian and Yiddish, coming up

smack against the English."

Grace Paley

Words from one language can

be reused in another - creating

neologisms.

So I said to Mrs. Z., one oi out of you and it's

divorce.

Grace Paley

"Zagrowsky Tells"

Translated proverbs and

phrases give rise to arresting

new viewpoints.

"Si, Doña Claudia. Pero, del gozo al pozo!"

He said this any time things were going well. From

pleasure you go to the pits, or, from delight to the

cess pool.

Lucia Berlin

"Del Gozo Al Pozo"

Conflicting cultural forces

sharpen a writer's eye for what

is genuine and real.

"...writers of mixed identity...retain the sites of

friction where different racial, sexual, and national

elements meet, forming sparks and sharp edges."

Suzanne Bost

Mixed-identity writers I have

studied use similar storytelling

techniques.

# 1 Direct sensuous details to

describe place and character.

Larks and meadowlarks, redwinged blackbirds

darted above the ditches by the road; the singing

of the birds rose above the sound of the truck.

Lucia Berlin

"Bluebonnets"

Aunt Martha had blue permanented hair and big

round rouge spots on her cheeks. She wore a red

flowered muu-muu and she crushed me to her,

rocking me, hugging me. I was enfolded into the

vast poinsettias on her breasts. In spite of myself I

clung to her, sank into her and her smell of

Jergen's lotion, Johnson's baby powder.

Lucia Berlin

"Itinerary"

#2 Living dialogue.

I seen you push me. I feeled you push me. Who

you think you go around pushin. Bastard.

Grace Paley

"Gloomy Tune"

#3 Open-ended resolutions.

Goodbye, I said, have a nice day. Goodbye, they

said once more, and set off in pride on paths which

are not my concern.

Grace Paley

"The Used-Boy Raisers"

The alertness borne of linguistic

and cultural hybridity has

produced a vivid prose style

with the candour of memoir.

Read more in my Master of Creative Writing exegesis "The Literary Benefits of

Linguistic and Cultural Hybridity" available on my website.

http://www.leanneradojkovich.com/me