Suzanne Gilbert: Loss, Love and Redemption: The Literature of Search and Reunion

A new genre has emerged in English arts and letters during the last 35 years that can best be described as search and reunion in non-fiction. It echoes an ancient tradition in religion, myth and world literature that is human, universal and poetic. That is the tradition of the hero, often an adoptee, searching and bringing back a gift to civilization from his reunion.
This presentation will take a look at the catalysts in our own times that have us turning anew to a literary form of loss, love and redemption. This genre of search and reunion is represented by over 550 works of both fiction and non-fiction.
We will take a lively look at the emerging search and reunion genre through the lens of biblical scholarship, Boswell, Jung, Rank and Wells.
“Suzanne Gilbert” is the pen name of the contributor to two anthologies, an NPR “The Moth” story slam monologue “When the Unborn Give Birth” and the author of the novel Tapioca Fire set in New Jersey, Bangkok and greater Chiang Rai, Thailand, Tokyo and Nikko, Japan, and Corea, Maine.