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Shauna Roberts
culture clash in my fiction
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| Much of my fiction, published and unpublished, explores conflicts between cultures.
You might think this theme a legacy of my training as an anthropologist or of many years of reading history. Perhaps a stronger source lies in my background as someone neither fully of one culture nor of another.
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| My mother came from a Pennsylvania Dutch background and was the first in her family to complete high school; my father's mother belonged to the D.A.R. and had a college degree, as did her mother, and her mother before her. My hometown of Beavercreek, Ohio, lies smack on the imaginary line where Northern culture and Southern culture collide and not far from the edge of the Appalachian cultural area. I've lived in the North, South, East, and West, in small towns and big cities, and fit in nowhere except New Orleans, where everyone can find a place. When I read history, I don't know whom to root for, because my ancestors include both the invaders and the invaded, the persecutors and the persecuted.
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| I've struggled throughout my life to knit together different cultural traditions into an integrated whole, and some of my fiction may represent the contribution of my subconscious to this effort.
Whatever the source of this recurring theme in my fiction, finding ways to bridge cultural gaps is essential in today's world. Because of people who think their beliefs and customs are the only correct ones, our civilization teeters on the brink of disintegration or even outright destruction.
I hope my fiction will encourage you to ponder these issues and take a stand in favor of understanding and tolerance. In Benjamin Franklin's famous words (as cited in Bartlett's), "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
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