Given that the label "immigrant literature" is already established, unavoidable for anyone with a migrant background and used in any given context, I strongly advocate an absurd amount of specification to go along with the label.

The reason for writing that essay was less a personal agenda than an attempt to explain my unease with the general label of "immigrant literature" after I had read quite a number of reviews (in different countries) involving books written by 'immigrants.'

It can stand in the way of narration in cases where we want the protagonist to actually go through some kind of catharsis while our own (non-fictional) experiences and stories lead to something banal or completely uninteresting.

A book is not only written - after it's finished it starts writing you, the writer. You become its notebook, its sheet of paper on which it forces you to think and rethink your original ideas, your topics, your research, actually everything.

By trying to give an artistic approach through my book I stepped unwillingly into other fields. Like a dentist being asked about a throat ache on a much more relevant scale, I was caught in trying to explain what was unexplainable for me. In the end, trying to explain why it was unexplainable finally led to a huge general insecurity in dealing with the subject at all.

It just seemed to me so utterly wrong to credit someone's work just for the fact that this someone migrated from one place to another. We all move. We are all leavers and new beginners at some point, and yes, it is a huge leap from war to peace, from one language to another, from Boston, MA to Joplin, MO.

By changing the way I experienced things, even just involving different details than in reality, I often felt I was betraying the past and playing an unfair game with the reader where he (of course) would ask himself "Did this really happen?"