Ethnic Passages - 9780226244426

The University of Chicago Press

Ethnic PassagesLiterary Immigrants in Twentieth-Century America\nAuthor(s): Thomas J. Ferraro\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: The University of Chicago Press, United States\nImprint: University of Chicago Press\nISBN-13: 9780226244426, 978-0226244426\nSynopsis\nEthnic literature figures prominently in the current debate on multiculturalism, but even its supporters have had little to say about it as literature, stressing instead its political and sociological context. Thomas J. Ferraro, in this lively and accessible study of modern fiction by Americans of immigrant background, argues that the best of these stories demandand rewardclose reading and attention to questions of genre and literary form. \n\nFerraro engages the literature of immigration and mobility by asking what motivates its authors and what their work actually accomplishes. He concentrates on five diverse examples of the \""up-from-the-ghetto\"" narrative: Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers, Henry Ro.