'Homesick for the North American Continent': Elizabeth Bowen's Postwar Transatlantic Crossings

This article investigates the influence of North America on Bowen's later work. After the war, Bowen traveled to America, at least once a year, until her last illness. Yet her time in the United States has often been overlooked. In the States, she lectured at colleges and universities across the country, and taught at several prestigious schools. She also wrote articles and essays for the more lucrative American journals and periodicals. In addition to touring the country, she was able to see her many American friends, such as Eudora Welty, and her publishers, the Knopfs, as well as her lover, Charles Ritchie. This new continent allowed Bowen to confront old traumas on new grounds, especially in the American element of Eva Trout, in which she displaces the central question of the relationship between mother and child onto American soil to interrogate the (literally, in Jeremy's case) unspeakable nature of trauma.