The Future of Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels

This chapter discusses the possible futures of the Diasporic Coming-of-age Novel. In taking a retrospective view of the book, this chapter enumerates the essential characteristics of the coming-of-age genre in general and of Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels in particular. It then analyzes two recent Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels to parse the possibilities the genre can enable in years to come: Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019) and Gabby Rivera’s Juliet Takes a Breath (2019). These novels represent the possibility for profound analyses of diaspora and queerness as key parts of the formative processes of autodidactic and highly intelligent protagonists who understand their identities in academically complex and intersectional terms. Their experience of intermingling with varied diasporas enables the protagonists Little Dog and Juliet to become global and globalized citizens acutely aware of the effects that international historical processes have on their own formative processes and identities. Alterity in these novels is a set of experiences that bring people together despite their variegated backgrounds and national origins, a new anti-national possibility of Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels.