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This essay focuses on literary representations of the dynamic between the normative or mainstream self and the other, the foreigner or outsider,who is perceived as a threat, in works by North American writers who are arguably “ethnic”and “diasporic”: Gary Shteyngart’s novel Our Country Friendsand Amitava Kumar’s autofiction titled A Time Outside This Time: A Novel. These literary texts respond to the perceived threat especially in times of public crises such as the recent pandemic, from within the private sphere. They foreground but also critique an autoimmunitarian response from those who endeavor to secure themselves against the threatening other.In highlighting diasporic perspectives this chapter foregrounds the “transatlantic”aspect (the threat is often seen as originating in overseas immigration).In direct or indirect ways the works discussed here shed light on American cultural life from the edges of the nation or countries beyond its borders. These counternarratives resist the dominant narratives propagated in the public sphere, for instance by the state. The mode of resistance can vary, and may take the ironic form of promoting a Mithridatic inclusion of the other.This could offer a new way out of the self-harming problematic of autoimmunity in social as well as personal contexts.
