Literary Benefits of Linguistic and
Cultural Hybridity
by
Leanne Radojkovich

Writers with two or more
linguistic and cultural identities
have a wide range of storytelling
techniques.

Unique prose styles result from
exposure to dual:
• environments
• behavioural norms
• languages

Knowing two languages means
knowing two syntaxes - leading
to fresh sentence structures.

Time stops when someone dies. Of course it stops
for them, maybe, but for the mourners time runs
amok. Death comes too soon. It forgets the tides,
the days growing longer and shorter, the moon.
Lucia Berlin
"Wait a Minute"

Rhythms of one language
invigorate another.

I was popular in certain circles, says Aunt Rose. I
wasn't no thinner then, only more stationary in the
flesh, Lillie, don't be surprised – change is a fact of
God. From this no one is excused.
Grace Paley
"Goodbye and Good Luck"

"I think the most powerful sounds are...those
childhood voices... Russian and Yiddish, coming up
smack against the English."
Grace Paley

Words from one language can
be reused in another - creating
neologisms.

So I said to Mrs. Z., one oi out of you and it's
divorce.
Grace Paley
"Zagrowsky Tells"

Translated proverbs and
phrases give rise to arresting
new viewpoints.

"Si, Doña Claudia. Pero, del gozo al pozo!"
He said this any time things were going well. From
pleasure you go to the pits, or, from delight to the
cess pool.
Lucia Berlin
"Del Gozo Al Pozo"

Conflicting cultural forces
sharpen a writer's eye for what
is genuine and real.

"...writers of mixed identity...retain the sites of
friction where different racial, sexual, and national
elements meet, forming sparks and sharp edges."
Suzanne Bost

Mixed-identity writers I have
studied use similar storytelling
techniques.

# 1 Direct sensuous details to
describe place and character.

Larks and meadowlarks, redwinged blackbirds
darted above the ditches by the road; the singing
of the birds rose above the sound of the truck.
Lucia Berlin
"Bluebonnets"

Aunt Martha had blue permanented hair and big
round rouge spots on her cheeks. She wore a red
flowered muu-muu and she crushed me to her,
rocking me, hugging me. I was enfolded into the
vast poinsettias on her breasts. In spite of myself I
clung to her, sank into her and her smell of
Jergen's lotion, Johnson's baby powder.
Lucia Berlin
"Itinerary"

#2 Living dialogue.

I seen you push me. I feeled you push me. Who
you think you go around pushin. Bastard.
Grace Paley
"Gloomy Tune"

#3 Open-ended resolutions.

Goodbye, I said, have a nice day. Goodbye, they
said once more, and set off in pride on paths which
are not my concern.
Grace Paley
"The Used-Boy Raisers"

The alertness borne of linguistic
and cultural hybridity has
produced a vivid prose style
with the candour of memoir.

Read more in my Master of Creative Writing exegesis "The Literary Benefits of
Linguistic and Cultural Hybridity" available on my website.
http://www.leanneradojkovich.com/me