Conceptions of multicultural space in J.K. Eugenides' novel «Middlesex»

The article discusses J.K. Eugenides' novel «Middlesex», combining a range of issues topical for modern literary criticism in the context of the author's concept of multiculturalism, which is most vividly manifested in the spatial images of the novel. The image of Greek Smyrna presents the idea of «organic» peaceful co-existence of nations on the basis of the natural way of life. American Detroit embodies the mechanical world of the «melting pot» of nations, and modern German Berlin demonstrates the possibility of the «true» multiculturalism, of the place where each «Other one» can feel himself as part of the whole. The novel is analysed in terms of interactions of historical, multicultural and partly gender issues. The problem of historical trauma is also addressed.