The «i» of the migrant subject. Analysis of «The conversion of Uei-Kuong» by Siu Kam Wen

Abstract

As a Peruvian writer of Chinese origin, Siu Kam Wen describes in the story «The Conversion of Uei-Kuong» the chaotic life of Uei-Kuong, a Peruvian who grew up in China but returns to live in Lima. By using the multiple discourses of time, space, and narrators, Siu constructs the figure of the «migrant subject» and talks about the confusion of ethnic identity due to the incongruence of the cognitive «I» and the social «me». Through Uei-Kuong, Siu Kam Wen manages to present not only the «individual self» that suffers from identity crisis, but also the «collective self» of the Chinese male immigrants who live simultaneously in two worlds, but condemned to belong to the «no place».

https://doi.org/10.17398/2660-7301.41.175