Memory, Migration, and Postnationalism: A Comparative Study of Korean and Croatian Diasporic Narratives

Abstract

This article presents a comparative analysis of the representative works of Croatian author Dubravka Ugrešić and Korean American writer Min Jin Lee, examining how diasporic literature narrates memory, migration, and postnationalism. Situated in contrasting geopolitical contexts – post-Yugoslav Eastern Europe and postcolonial East Asia – these authors deconstruct nation-state-centered identity narratives and explore the literary and ethical possibilities of border-crossing subjectivities. Their texts foreground the dissolution of national boundaries and articulate a literary imagination rooted in postnational ethics and diasporic consciousness.

Ugrešić critically dismantles nationalist discourse through linguistic dislocation and fragmented memory, representing the existential condition of the exiled subject and the instability of language as a medium of belonging. In contrast, Lee reconstructs a diasporic ethics based on familial memory and emotional solidarity, narrating the historical legacy of colonialism and racial marginalization. While employing different narrative strategies, both authors challenge fixed identity models and offer narratives that envision hybrid and plural subjectivities grounded in memory, migration, and linguistic multiplicity.

Grounded in theories of diaspora, cultural memory, and postnationalism, this study explores how the works of Ugrešić and Lee construct alternative ethical and aesthetic imaginaries. Through their depictions of border-dwelling identities and transnational conditions, this article argues that diasporic literature constitutes a critical site for rethinking global literary discourse and imagining new modes of subject formation beyond the framework of the nation-state.