Citizenship, Diaspora, and Toronto in Bezmozgis’ Immigrant City

Synonyms

Autobiografiction; Bezmozgis; Biography; Gentrification; Immigration; Mobility; Montreal; Renovation; Riga; Temporary home; Toronto

David Bezmozgis opens “Common Story,” an autobiographical account that appeared in the anthology Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, in 8 September 1979, when he and his parents left Riga and the Soviet Union. Following stays in Vienna and Rome, the young family will relocate to Toronto, the capital city of the Canadian province Ontario and where they have neither friends nor relatives: “I still consider it strange how random this all was, and sometimes wonder about the lives we would have had, the different person I would have become, in Melbourne or Los Angeles, Atlanta or Israel—or Riga, had we stayed there as others did.” Bezmozgis returns to their immigration experience in his oeuvre, from his short-story cycle Natasha and Other Stories (2004) to his most recent collection Immigrant City: Stories (2019). His two feature films Victoria...