Crossings

A captivating exploration of identity, language, and memory, weaving together whimsical and profound vignettes that challenge our understanding of home and self in a multicultural world. In Crossings, Sylvia Molloy embarks on an evocative exploration of the intricate and profound experience of living between languages, cultures, and geographies. A pioneering Argentine writer, fluent in Spanish, English, and French, Molloy inhabited all three languages, shuttling back, forth, and between, aware that each place and each language bring forth a different self. The short entries that make up Varied Imagination and Living Between Languagesthe two collections gathered in this volume for the first timerevolve around an interrelated set of questions. What makes home? Does language make or destabilize a sense of home? How does speaking a language or switching between languages perform ones place in the world? These vignettes capture the realization that the most seemingly natural things in lifesuch as home, language, and identitydepend entirely on performance. Each act, each word communicates something, means something, does something to their specific audience; another audience might react quite differently. Molloy wrote, rewrote, edited, and reworked to find the right mix to express the estar entre or between that was her life. In this compelling volume, Molloys reflections on the fluidity of identity and the transient nature of home resonate deeply, prompting readers to contemplate the profound connections between language, place, memory, and lived experience.