“Kompulzivne putnice” ili Irkinje u dijaspori u romanima Breakfast in Babylon i More Bread or I'll Appear Emer Martin
“Compulsive Travellers” or Irish Women in the Diaspora in Emer Martin’s Breakfast in Babylon and More Bread or I’ll Appear

Summary/Abstract: This article sets out to examine the ways in which the Irish diaspora and Irish women in the diaspora at the end of the twentieth century are represented in Emer Martin's novels Breakfast in Babylon (1995) and More Bread or I'll Appear (2000). The paper attempts to demonstrate that Martin's protagonists largely defy the traditional image of their ancestresses who emigrated from Ireland in search of a better life. Martin’s women break free from the Irish family, Ireland and their Catholic heritage, and acquire an identity of a „compulsive traveller“ who rather effortlessly travels around Europe and the world. The Irish diaspora in Martin’s fiction is related to all kinds of off-the-wall characters such as the homeless, squatters, or drug dealers living on the margins of society, and transvestites and hedonist gay priests who openly subvert traditional Irish values. The aim of the analysis is to show that the globalized world of Martin’s diaspora functions as the setting where Irish women migrants manage to escape control and authority that marked Irish society for a long period of time.

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