ABSTRACT
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and ensuing waves of emigration, Jewish communities in several parts of the world have witnessed unparalleled transformations (Remennick). In this context, the United States hosts one of the densest post-Soviet Jewish urban populations worldwide: in New York City, 300,000 native-born Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, or Georgians have established “one of the world’s most important centers of Soviet Jewish culture” (Orleck 111). While, as yet, some fi eldwork attention has been paid to major enclaves like Brighton Beach (Markowitz; Orleck), there has recently emerged the opportunity in literary and cultural studies to investigate the in-between experience of the migrants’ children. For, ever since the overwhelming success of Gary Shteyngart’s fi rst novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (2002), the surfacing of a veritable generation of post-Soviet Jewish writers like David Bezmozgis, Sana Krasikov, Anya Ulinich, Lara Vapnyar, and others has been noted (Weber; Dickstein). All of these have relocated with their families to North America and currently produce coming-of-age fi ction that traces life in both former Soviet states and the United States.
