Céad Míle Fáilte? Twenty-First Century Irish Fiction by Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Women

Dra. Aida Rosende Pérez (co-directorDr. Seán Kennedy (St Mary’s University, Halifax))

This doctoral thesis analyses the literary self-representations of asylum-seeking and refugee women in contemporary Ireland. It is argued that these texts are shaped by the historical, social, and legal contexts in which both the authors and their texts are embedded, that is, twenty-first century Ireland, which has become increasingly exclusionary and restrictive regarding immigration, asylum, and citizenship laws. Thus, the thesis is divided in two parts, with the former informing the latter: Part I, Context and hegemonic narrative(s), and Part II, Fictional texts as counter-narratives. The first part includes three chapters, which lay the contextual frame, both academic and theoretical, as well as historical, social and institutional, in which the authors and the fictional texts analysed in the second part are embedded. That is, Part I deals with the hegemonic and official narrative(s) and discourse(s) of the Irish state and society regarding race, immigration (including asylum), and national belonging. The second part of this thesis includes three chapters in which novels and short stories by Marsha Mehran, Ifedinma Dimbo, and Melatu Uche Okorie, are analysed as examples of counter-narratives against the hegemonic narratives covered in Part I.