Transculturality and Self-Discovery in Alev Croutier’s Seven Houses

Abstract

With the increased human mobility, people can no longer define themselves within a monocultural identity, leading to the emergence of multi-layered and fluid identities, a phenomenon known as transculturality. At this intersection of cultures, new possibilities, perspectives, and ways of being emerge. Analysing Alev Lytle Croutier’s Seven Houses (2003) is key to understanding how Croutier constructs her transcultural identity. Croutier, who describes her literary self as not belonging to any of the cultures in which she has lived, needs to uproot her established cultural truths and challenge them with a new understanding. Analysing the semi-fictional autobiography Seven Houses is crucial not only for understanding how Croutier constructed her transcultural feminist identity but also for exploring how she subverted the conventional norms of the Western novel and autobiography to forge a new literary self. This article aims to examine how Croutier crafted a transcultural space through her narrative style, positioned between East and West, spirituality and rationality, magical realism and reality. It also seeks to explore how she used this space to reconcile with her past and resolve the internal divisions within herself.