[Discussion] PUBL.: Gönül Pultar, ed. On the Road to Baghdad or Traveling Biculturalism

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

New Publication:

On the Road to Baghdad or Traveling Biculturalism: Theorizing a 
Bicultural Approach to Contemporary World Fiction by Gönül Pultar 
(Editor). New Academia Publishing, Washington, DC., August 2005.  332 
pages, Paperback, 24 USD. ISBN 0-9767042-1-8

http://www.newacademia.com/

Edited by Gönül Pultar, On the Road to Baghdad or Traveling 
Biculturalism: Theorizing a Bicultural Approach to Contemporary World 
Fiction is a collection of fourteen essays on fiction written in 
English, Spanish and Bengali that has emerged or been revalorized 
recently. It features essays written by Nadia Ahmad, Esther Alvarez 
Lopez, Mita Banerjee, Sriparna Basu, Fu-jen Chen, Paloma Fresno
Calleja, Kuldip K. Kuwahara, Gönül Pultar, Lalitha Ramamurthi, Dora 
Sales Salvador, Paul Smethurst, Katrina D. Thompson, Rachel Trousdale 
and Theodora Tsimpouki.

Authors whose fiction is examined in the essays include the Black 
British Caryl Phillips, Chicana Sandra Cisneros, Chinese American Maxine 
Hong Kingston, Cuban American Dolores Prida, Danish Izak Dinesen, Greek 
Americans Nikos Papandreou and Catherine Temma Davidson, Kenyan Ngugi wa 
Thiongo, Japanese American John Okada, New Zealander Patricia Grace, 
Peruvian José Maria Arguedas, Turkish American Güneli Gün, and 
contemporary English-language Indian authors Vikram Chandra, Chitra B. 
Divakaruni, Attia Hosain, Manju Kapur, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, as 
well as Rabindranath Tagore.



Contents

Foreword
Gönül Pultar

Introduction
William Belhoewer


Part I. Biculturality

1. Theodora Tsimpouki
Bi- or Mono- culturalism?: Contemporary Literary Representations of
Greek-American Identity

2. Paloma Fresno Calleja
Meaningful Wor(l)ds: Patricia Grace's Bicultural Fiction

3. Gönül Pultar
Güneli Gün's On the Road to Baghdad or Traveling Biculturalism

4. Mita Banerjee
The Intricacy of Spices: A Bicultural Reading of Salman Rushdie's
Midnight's Children and Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spices


Part II. Transculturation and Cultural Translation:

5. Esther Alvarez Lopez
Transculturation and Biculturalism: Latina Writers of the United States 
at/as a Crossroads

6. Dora Sales Salvador
José Maria Arguedas and Vikram Chandra: Bridging Cultures, Living 
Translation

7. Katrina Daly Thompson
How A Grain of Wheat Becomes Tsanga Yembeu or Translation as a 'Meeting
Ground of Cultures'


Part III. Hybridity and Interculturality

8. Rachel Trousdale
Hybridity and the Artist in Out of Africa

9. Kuldip Kaur Kuwahara
Magical Realism and Myth in Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of 
Stories and Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey

10. Nadia Ahmad
'Cracking India': Tradition versus Modernity in Attia Hosain's
Sunlight on a Broken Column and Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters

11. Sriparna Basu
Rabindranath Tagore, Cultural Difference and the Indian Woman's 'Burden'


Part IV. Transnationalism and Postmodernism

12. Fu-jen Chen
The Cultural Mirroring in-between the two Symbolics: A Regressive 
Passage to Psychosis in John Okada's No-No Boy

13. Paul Smethurst
Postmodern Blackness and Unbelonging in the Works of Caryl Phillips

14. Lalitha Ramamurthi
Locating Global Links: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things


Works Cited

Notes on Contributors

Index