They Only Laughed Later

The product of a series of major conferences which brought expatriate women together from over 20 countries, this is a collection of essays describing the challenges that faced the authors, many of them published writers, who moved to strange lands in pursuit of their own or their husbands' careers. The authors are from the USA, Canada, Britain, Germany and Sweden and their present countries of residence include the UK, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Turkey, Hong Kong, the Philippines and the USA. Their experiences evoke many of the issues faced by expatriate women: general culture shock, homesickness, language confusion, change of climate, adaptation to cultural differences and repatriation. While there may seem little to laugh at in the midst of so much discomfort, the truth is that hilarity lurks in the corners of most of the situations described in the book and the ability to laugh, even if it is only after the event, is the dominant feature of all the essays.