The seminar will focus on immigrants, who chose to write prose fiction in a language they immigrated to. Choosing to write in a language not one's own turns a writer into an intimate stranger, or, perhaps, into an observer keeping his or her distance even in the most intimate of moments. We'll try to describe the effects of this choice on the writers' language uses, plot and character preferences, and political stances. We'll inquire to what an extent is such literature necessarily a "minor literature".