What Was “Expat Lit”?

The proclivity to leave home behind and establish oneself in a European city has long existed within America’s upper classes. For generations, the European rumspringa was the gold standard in the development of any would-be American intellectual or moneyed cosmopolitan, a fact attested to by the reams of “Expat Lit” sent back across the Atlantic over the years. Popularized most notably by Henry James, novels detailing the lives of emigré Americans in Europe became the form of choice for dozens of our best writers, from Ernest Hemingway to James Baldwin. In the pre–World War II era, the United States existed decidedly in the shadow of the major European powers in terms of both cultural and economic influence.