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Lizi Dzagnidze, Caucasus University, GeorgiaAbstract
The paper analyzes Brooklyn (2009) by Colm Tóibín through the lens of migration, identity, and urban symbolism, while placing it in a larger context of Irish literature’s preoccupation with the themes of exile and belonging. Brooklyn, a celebrated work of modern Irish fiction, carries on the literary tradition of depicting the emigrant experience, which is a defining narrative arc in Irish literary and cultural memory that dates back, most famously, to Joyce and in this paper’s case to Tóibín. Following the journey from a small Irish town of Enniscorthy to Brooklyn, New York, the novel is the best illustration of the psychological dislocation that accompanies migration, a theme that the paper will consider extensively as it remains especially relevant in today’s globalized world, marked by economic displacement and the problem of belonging. Particular attention is given to the dual city-symbolism: Enniscorthy, the town of origin, and Brooklyn, the space of opportunity and personal transformation. Tóibín creates contrasting, liminal spaces as emotional and moral landscapes as a result of which, the city in Brooklyn acquires an agency of mediating identity, as a site of loss and transformation and a threshold that shapes identity. The Georgian translation of the novel (2021) adds special significance to the novel’s resonance in a Georgian context, where questions of emigration and return are more relevant than ever in shaping the national psyche. The study examines how Tóibín’s nuanced, emotionally restrained prose conveys the diasporic experience across cultures and nations.
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Conference: BAMC2025Stream: Literature
This paper is part of the BAMC2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Dzagnidze L. (2025) Migration, Identity, and the Symbolic Weight of Place in Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn ISSN: 2435-9475 – The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 137-142) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-9475.2025.14
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-9475.2025.14
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