The paper analyzes Brooklyn (2009) by Colm Tóibín using 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 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 of Eilis Lacey from a small Irish town 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 economic opportunity, cultural confrontation, and personal transformation. Tóibín uses 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 Brooklyn (2021) adds special significance to the novel’s resonance in a Georgian context, where questions of emigration, return, and cultural hybridity are more relevant than ever in shaping the national psyche. The study examines how Tóibín's nuanced, emotionally restrained prose conveys the diasporic experience to readers around the world.

The presented study is a part of the Fundamental Research project (FR-24-7246) funded and supported by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia.

Authors:
Lizi Dzagnidze, Caucasus University, Georgia

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Lizi Dzagnidze, Associate Professor at Caucasus University and lecturer at TSU, specializes in modernist literature and literary theory. Her current project explores the reception and translation of Irish literature in Georgia.

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