Looking closely at a group of writers who rejected the industrial West in favor of the expatriate life and made that quest the subject of their work, Marilynn Papayanis reveals their concerns to be ethical as well as aesthetic. Her book brims with fresh insights into such works as Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky, Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet, and Michael Ondaatjes The English Patient.
Marilyn Papayanis investigates the ""ex-centric"" expatriate - a metropolitan figure led away from the industrial West to marginalized or colonized domains. For the principal subjects of her study - D. H. Lawrence, Paul Bowles, and Lawrence Durrell - expatriation was a defining act, shaping not only their personal histories but their work as well.
