Author(s): Begüm TUÄLU
The conception of identity has been studied through many different branches of humanities, in terms of language, ideology, psychoanalysis, sociology or history just to name a few. All theories come close in defining identity as an ever transforming, fluctuating and instable concept.. The term multiculturalism, which is usually preferred in trying to define the state of different cultures in the attempt of existing together, seems to be insufficient when it comes to the globalized world of the twenty-first century. Even though transnationalism was introduced by Randolph Bourne in the early twentieth century, its broader significance did not reveal itself in English literature until the final decades of the century. This study aims to explore the concept of transnationalism and its effect on the process of identity formation within different novels to demonstrate how individuals living in a globalized world construct a unique sense of identity while carrying certain features in common through this process. Within this frame, I intend to refer to Meera Syal’s Anita and Me, Zadie Smith’s The Autograph Man, Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore, Deborah Maggoch’s Hot Water Man, Ruth Prawer Jhabvola’s Heat and Dust and Hanan Al-Shayks’s Only in London to exemplify how transnational identities are narrated in English novels.
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