Narrating Memory and Displacement in <i>Fruit of the Lemon, Every Fire You Tend</i> and <i>Disoriental</i>

Abstract This essay analyzes Andrea Levy’s Fruit of the Lemon (1999), Sema Kaygusuz’s Every Fire You Tend (2009), and Négar Djavadi’s Disoriental (2016) to highlight the significance of memory in understanding the protagonists’ complex and alienating experiences of displacement. Memory functions both as a healing and liberating process and as a political necessity to deal with the intricacies of displacement. Set in different socio-historical contexts, these novels also shed light on diverse experiences of displacement across cultures and borders. This comparative analysis aims not to create a competitive space but a connective one, raising awareness of multi-dimensional understandings of memory and displacement. This essay thus also emphasizes the potential of literature to transmit memory and form and to generate comprehensive and non-hegemonic feminist spaces for discussing women’s experiences of displacement.