THE ETERNAL STORY OF HIRAETH: A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF KEN LIU’S “THE PAPER MENAGERIE”

The wave of immigration in recent decades has heralded new versions of colonialism. Thus, attention to the phenomenon of migration has gained a special place in literature. Among diaspora writers, one can mention Ken Liu whose most celebrated short story, “The Paper Menagerie”, is the only story that has won the Nebula, the Hugo, and the World Fantasy Award. “The Paper Menagerie” is a magic realism story about a biracial boy named Jack who has an American father and a Chinese mother. In the course of this paper, at first, Ken Liu and his “The Paper Menagerie” will be introduced and the character of the mother, who constantly feels hiraeth, will be examined as a diaspora based on William Safran’s ideas. Then, the attitudes of the family and the Americans toward each other as well as the cultural differences between them will be discussed with the help of Edward Said’s and Homi Bhabha’s theories. Furthermore, the different lifestyles of Jack and his mother will be debated in the light of Eric Landowski’s theory of socialrelations in order to conclude that they are respectively ‘snob’ and ‘dandy’. Additionally, it will be concluded that although different immigrants have varied lifestyles, they will, consciously or unconsciously, keep the connection with their homeland and their heritage in their hearts as a kind of magic, even if they harshly reject their heritage. Jack, who abandons his paper menagerie, his mother, and his Chinese heritage to assimilate to the American culture, loses both his mother and her magic, only to regain them at the end of the story.

Keywords:

diaspora literature , Ken Liu , “The Paper Menagerie” , cultural differences , immigrants’ lifestyles