Paul Marshall’s 1983 novel Praisesong for the Widow has at the core of its thematic the search for identity. Mashall asumes the position of storyteller and reproduces through the novel’s main character the struggles of being “in between” cultures. Migrant belonging to the host country is disrupted by configuration of cultural difference consignated to the past which cannot guide her/his sense of future. Living in diasporic lives means that the future becomes an open question as migrants are between a national past and a diasporic future.
Identity is therefore constantly negociated and this process creates hybrids identities.
At this point, framed by key cultural events and personal experiences, the novel describes and analyzes the cycle of