Migration, Memory and Matters of Identity: Narrative Strategies of Lebanese-Canadian Authors

Scientific Essay from the year 2026 in the subject Literature - Canada, University of Marburg (Marburger Zentrum für Kanada-Studien), course: Canada Day 2026, language: English, abstract: This study examines how Lebanese-Canadian authors Rawi Hage and Dimitri Nasrallah negotiate migration, memory, exile, and questions of identity in contemporary Canadian literature. Focusing on Hage's "Cockroach" and Nasrallah's "Hotline", it explores how experiences of war, displacement, trauma, and cultural transition shape narrative strategies, character development, and the search for belonging. The book situates both novels within the wider contexts of Canadian Muslim Writing, postcolonial literature, and transnational fiction. It shows how Lebanese-Canadian writing contributes to current debates on diaspora, hybridity, survival, social exclusion, and the ambivalent promise of multicultural Canada. By bringing together literary analysis and cultural context, this study highlights the significance of Lebanese-Canadian voices within modern CanLit and asks how literature can give form to lives marked by loss, movement, memory, and the difficult construction of a new home.