The Assimilation Experience of Five American White Ethnic Novelists of the Twentieth Century

This title, originally published in 1990, is a contribution to the social and literary history of ethnic groups in America. Its sources are the writings – chiefly novels – of five authors of Eastern and Southern European descent, chosen because they depict the acculturation of their people, the meeting of their own ethnic group and American society. From their marginal stance, they expressed in fiction what they had observed and experienced, and they wrote symbolically of their journey to a choice of belonging to one group or the other. This title will be of interest to students of literature, history, and sociology.