Editors’ Introduction: Exploring Transculturalism -- “It's my own stuff”: The Negotiations and Multiplicity of Ethnic Identities among Young Women of Middle Eastern Backgrounds in Sweden -- Eamonn Wall: Transculturalism, Hybridity and the New Irish in America -- Petru Popescu and the Experience of Fragmentation -- Natsume Soseki: Culture Shock and the Birth of the Modern Japanese Novel -- Becoming “Un-Dominican-York”: Julia Alvarez, Transculturalism and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents -- How Not to Make a Mexican Musical: Luis Buñuel and the Perils of Mexicanidad -- Homesick while at Home: Hugo Hamilton and The Speckled People -- Confronting the “Foreigner from Within”: (Sexual) Exile and “Indomitable Force” in the Fiction of James Baldwin and Colm Tóibín -- Transcultural Biographies: A Cultural Perspective.

Transnational mobility is a widespread phenomenon. It has a big impact on the lives of the individuals who travel or migrate. In order to survive and achieve their goals, they have to go through a process of learning with regard to the cultural texts and practices they now confront. They have to cope with a range of rules and tools with which they are not familiar. In some cases, migrants will simply adopt these rules and practices. In others, their engagement with them will lead to fundamental changes in the host culture. Wolfgang Berg and Aoileann Ní Éigeartaigh interrogate the notion of „transculturalism” in an interdisciplinary way and explore the tensions inherent in contemporary theories of culture and identity. Exploring the (auto)biographical writings of transcultural protagonists, the authors show that crossing borders remains a difficult and challenging experience. The book will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of cultural/intercultural studies, literature, and social science.