Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries [1 ed.] 9789401209854, 9789042037335

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Studies in Comparative Literature 71 Series Editors C.C. Barfoot and Theo D’haen

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries

Edited by

Wolfgang Behschnitt, Sarah De Mul and Liesbeth Minnaard

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013

Cover image: Shutterstock Image design: Marjolein Schurmans The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of ‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence’. ISBN: 978-90-420-3733-5 E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0985-4 © Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013 Printed in The Netherlands

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE Wolfgang Behschnitt, Sarah De Mul, Liesbeth Minnaard

ix

PART I: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS “MULTICULTURAL LITERATURES”

IN A

COMPARATIVE PERSPEC-

TIVE

Wolfgang Behschnitt and Magnus Nilsson

1

MULTILINGUALISM AND DIGLOSSIA IN MIGRATION LITERATURE: THE CASE OF FLEMISH SONGS IN NORTHERN FRANCE Elien Declercq and Michael Boyden 17 PART II: DISCOURSES ON MULTICULTURALISM, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN SWEDEN, DENMARK, THE NETHERLANDS, AND FLANDERS LITERATURE IN MULTICULTURAL AND MULTILINGUAL SWEDEN: THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE IMMIGRANT WRITER Magnus Nilsson 41 NEW VOICES WANTED: THE SEARCH FOR A DANISH MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE Dörthe Gaettens 63 EVERY CARPET A FLYING VEHICLE? MULTICULTURALITY IN THE DUTCH LITERARY FIELD Liesbeth Minnaard 97

“THE NETHERLANDS

IS DOING WELL. ALLOCHTOON WRITING TALENT IS BLOSSOMING THERE”: DEFINING FLEMISH LITERATURE, DESIRING “ALLOCHTOON” WRITING

Sarah De Mul

123

PART III: (MULTI)LINGUAL INTERVENTIONS: EXEMPLARY ANALYSES OF LITERARY AND LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES OF LITERARY TEXTS BI- AND MULTILINGUAL ASPECTS IN THE LITERARY WRITING OF TRANSLINGUAL AUTHORS IN SWEDEN Peter Leonard 149 THE RHYTHM OF HIP HOP: MULTI-ETHNIC SLANG LITERATURE AFTER 2000 Wolfgang Behschnitt IS THERE OR IS THERE NOT DENMARK? Søren Frank

A

LITERATURE

OF

IN

SWEDISH 175

MIGRATION

IN

197

THE EMERGENCE OF A DUTCH-MOROCCAN LITERATURE: AN INSTITUTIONAL AND LINGUISTIC EXPLANATION Marjan Nijborg and Fouad Laroui 225 “WE ARE NOT BODIES ONLY, BUT WINGED SPIRITS”: MORPHOSIS IN THE WORK OF HAFID BOUAZZA Henriëtte Louwerse

META243

ABOUT THE (NON-)EXISTENCE OF “MIGRANT LITERATURE” IN THE NETHERLANDS: OR, WHY MUSTAFA STITOU IS A DUTCH AUTHOR Yves T’Sjoen 263

MULTICULTURALISM AND MULTILINGUALISM IN CONTEMPORARY PROSE IN FLANDERS: CHIKA UNIGWE, KOEN PEETERS, AND BENNO BARNARD Sarah De Mul and Thomas Ernst 283 PART IV: A COMPARATIVE VIEW CONCLUSION: A COMPARATIVE VIEW Wolfgang Behschnitt, Sarah De Mul, and Liesbeth Minnaard

317

INDEX

339

PREFACE WOLFGANG BEHSCHNITT, SARAH DE MUL, LIESBETH MINNAARD

If there is anything to learn from the 2011 terrorist attack by a homegrown Norwegian nationalist, it must be that multiculturalism continues to trigger highly explosive sentiments and immense sociopolitical controversy. As the tragic outcome disconcertingly reminds us, despite the fact that multilingual, multicultural society in the countries and regions treated in this volume has been an everyday reality for a long time, multiculturalism remains a topic of vehement, often-polarized debates in which the contested issues of national identity, culture, and language take central stage. It also shows how the local is inextricably intertwined with the global; though, in this case, in an ironic reversion, the terrorist’s convictions were drawn from international anti-Muslim networks, while Norwegians defend openness and tolerance as core elements of their national identity. Literature is not immune to these transitions and upheavals. If the literary field is affected by aesthetic diversification and intercultural exchange brought about by processes of globalization and migration, why should it not be influenced as well by monocultural discourse and nationalist political action? The subject of this volume is multicultural literature and its multilingual aspects in Sweden, Denmark, Flanders, and the Netherlands. Despite the fact that the multicultural society in these countries and regions is a reality rather than a fiction, this does not mean its existence is unanimously accepted. Societies that twenty years ago were considered models for tolerance and openness towards cultural diversity have experienced, during the first decade of the new millennium, serious objections to multiculturalism. Danish politics took a notable nationalist turn when the nationalistic Danish People’s Party gained influence on ten years of conservative government from

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2001 to 2011. Likewise, in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ antiMuslim Freedom Party has harvested vast electoral successes and became an influential player within the conservative alliance supporting Mark Rutte’s government from 2011. In Sweden, the influence of populist right-wing movements has been more limited; still, the 2010 elections gave the nationalistic Sweden Democrats a number of seats in the parliament and a lot of media attention. In Flanders, nationalist sentiments growing from social unrest and political discontent have recently been fuelled by perceived differences with the francophone-speaking southern part of Belgium as much as with ethnic minority communities within Flanders. Literature does not stay detached from such debates on multicultural society. Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries delineates the development of multicultural literature in Scandinavia and the Low Countries as a function of the specific language situation in these countries as well as the political, institutional, and discursive context. The articles, focusing either on Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, or Flanders, discuss the interrelations between institutional preconditions and current discourses of multiculturalism, the language situation, and literary texts. Limiting our scope to these four exemplary national contexts, we aim to offer a thorough analysis of the development of multicultural literatures in the specific political and linguistic conditions in which they emerge, rather than composing a mosaic display of more or less arbitrary aspects of multicultural literatures in various countries. As Wolfgang Behschnitt and Magnus Nilsson elaborate in Part I, we consider the thorough analysis of the national an indispensable precondition for a fruitful comparative approach of multicultural literatures. Additionally, we also concentrate on countries and regions which offer similar background conditions for multicultural literatures: Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, or Flanders are European societies, economically highly developed, and integrated in the global economy. These countries have a solid political tradition as democracies, and have become countries marked by immigration over the last fifty years. Finally, the national languages spoken in the four countries under inquiry are not “world languages”. The latter

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linguistic argument is of particular relevance for the development of multicultural and multilingual literature. Part I outlines a theoretical and methodological background and introduces central concepts and issues deployed in the analysis of multicultural and multilingual literatures within an inter-national analytical framework in the remaining chapters. Wolfgang Behschnitt and Magnus Nilsson discuss the problematic notion of “multicultural literature” and outline a comparative approach to the subject. Elien Declercq and Michael Boyden engage methodological issues concerning the analysis of multilingual texts, conceptualizing them in terms of bilingualism and diglossia. The latter concepts prove to be very fruitful for the following essays, many of which focus more in depth on the linguistic strategies deployed in multicultural literatures. Part II offers four articles sketching the discourse on multiculturalism, language, and the development of the literary field in Sweden (Magnus Nilsson), Denmark (Dörthe Gaettens), the Netherlands (Liesbeth Minnaard), and Flanders (Sarah De Mul). Additionally, these general articles reflect on the relation of multicultural literature to its broader, socio-political discursive context in which – at times heated – discussions on multiculturalism and migration play a dominant role. In their juxtaposition, these articles provide valuable insights into the nation-specific, but often also parallel or mutually resonant discourses on multicultural literature in Sweden, Denmark, Flanders, and the Netherlands. These articles review the linguistic, literary-institutional, and socio-political background for the analysis of multicultural and multilingual literatures in the respective countries in Part III. Starting out with Sweden, Peter Leonard analyses works of Theodor Kallifatides, Azar Mahloujian, and Fateme Behros, bilingual authors who immigrated to Sweden at an adult age and take up issues of immigration in their literary works; Wolfgang Behschnitt, in contrast, deals with a young and commercially successful part of Swedish literature treating the life of the “second generation”. While his study of multi-ethnic youth language and hip hop music as important elements in literary texts shows multiculture on its way into the Swedish mainstream, Søren Frank wonders if there is something like a multicultural literature at all in Denmark. The differences between the Danish and the Swedish situations are startling, indeed, but, as Frank

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shows (complementing Gaettens’ earlier article), this is not so much related to an absence of literary texts as to an absence of recognition. Opening the Dutch section, Marjan Nijborg and Fouad Laroui engage into the institutional and linguistic preconditions in the Netherlands that enable and stimulate the development of DutchMoroccan literature, as opposed to, for example, Dutch-Turkish literature. Henriëtte Louwerse’s analysis of Hafid Bouazza’s work explores an author’s subversive strategies to cope with the straightjacket the concept of multicultural literature entails. Yves T’Sjoen focuses on Dutch author Mustafa Stitou as an example of a modernist writer transcending multicultural categories and ethnically marked labels. Finally, the literary field in Flanders forms the background for Sarah De Mul’s and Thomas Ernst’s discussion of Chika Unigwe’s, Koen Peeters’, and Benno Barnard’s multilingual prose. The volume concludes with a summarizing and comparative discussion of the articles and their analysis of the respective situations. This volume would not have been accomplished without the support of a range of people. It originated in November 2009 during the two-day workshop “(Multi-)lingual interventions: A comparative view on contemporary migration literature in Scandinavia and the Benelux” organized by Wolfgang Behschnitt and the Department of Nordic Studies at Ghent University. Though (or precisely because) scholars of multicultural literature in Scandinavian, Low Countries, or Germanic regions and languages tend to work and publish in parallel and often disconnected academic circuits, the workshop offered a platform for cross-linguistic exchanges not only highly fruitful but also enabling us to bring home the relevance of the comparative approach embraced in this volume. We thank the organizers, the funding institutions, and participants in this workshop. We are grateful to the contributors to this volume for sharing their knowledge, ideas, and opinions with us in what we think are very insightful and thought-provoking articles. A comparative project like the one conducted in this volume in many ways requires a relatively larger investment of the individuals involved. We thank the contributors for their willingness to consider their individual contributions within the larger comparative framework of the volume, as well as their engagement with the overall theoretical and methodological considerations developed in the opening chapters.

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We also owe thanks to our meticulous and patient proof-reader Tim Yaczo and the series-editor Dr. Cedric Barfoot. They not only brushed up our English so as to meet the academic Anglophone norm and standard, but also advised us on terminology matters (such as how to translate – or not – the controversial but often-used Dutch term “allochtoon” that has no real equivalent in the English language).

I THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

“MULTICULTURAL LITERATURES” IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE WOLFGANG BEHSCHNITT AND MAGNUS NILSSON

“Multicultural literatures” as inter-national literatures “Multicultural literatures” – that is, literatures written, read, and discussed in the context of migration, multiculturalism and multilingualism – must, today without doubt, be considered an international phenomenon. Consequently, research on these literatures and matters must adopt an international perspective. Ulrich Beck states convincingly in his The Cosmopolitan Vision that the transnational reality of migration today requires a transgression of national borders on the part of critical research as well.1 Why, then, do we in this volume restrict our view to the situation of multicultural literatures in certain nation states? And, moreover, why do we choose to focus on countries like Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Flanders (the last, though not being a state, a region with a strong consciousness of national independence)? They all seem of peripheral significance in the global context of migration and literature, considering their moderate size and population, their minor political and economic influence, the limited scope of their languages and literatures, and, above all, the comparatively small number of literary texts which pertain to the field of multicultural and multilingual literature. Does not such an approach risk relapsing to bygone times when Comparative Literature meant enhancing national particularities rather than questioning them? Not to mention the additional risk that, in principle, transnational literatures, literatures of

1

Ulrich Beck, The Cosmopolitan Vision, trans. Ciaran Cronin, Cambridge: Polity, 2006, 2.

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migration, and multilingualism would be uncritically appropriated for the respective national literary fields? Yes, there are such risks, but in our opinion they are risks worth taking. We are convinced such a national and simultaneously comparative – and, hence, truly inter-national – perspective will provide a better understanding of multicultural literatures in their respective institutional, linguistic, and critical contexts. For several reasons it seems important not to neglect the national particularities of the development and shape of multicultural literatures. Firstly, the political and institutional preconditions for the actual development of literatures – their production, distribution, and reception – are to a large extent still given within the frame of the nation state. This is true in spite of the idea of “World Literature”, which is still current in critical debate. And it is all the more true for literatures originating outside the Anglo- and Francophone language areas. In these two areas, literary communication channels, and the medial and economic infrastructure supporting the production and distribution of literature, are less impeded by language barriers on their way across national borders than in the smaller European nationstates on which we focus in this volume. As a result of their linguistic, socio-economic and institutional foundations, the literary fields in Scandinavia and the Low Countries are shaped by national preconditions to a higher degree than the British or the French literary field. As a consequence, we suggest that even such obviously international phenomena as multicultural and multilingual literatures be analysed for the traces their national affiliations have imprinted on them: on the discourses informing them as well as on the literary texts. The second reason, then, to adopt a national perspective on multicultural and multilingual literature is language. Language barriers limit, as has already been hinted, the scope of the literary institutions, and this is especially true for so-called small language areas. Their literatures meet greater difficulties to reach out to an international public. They do not draw international attention in the same way as literature written in “world languages”. With rare exceptions such as, at the present, Scandinavian crime fiction, they are, from an international perspective, an issue for experts: publishers, translators, or even readers that specialize for some reason or other on these more exotic literary worlds. But the consequences of the

“Multicultural Literatures” in a Comparative Perspective

3

narrower limits of the literary institutions reach further than the domains of distribution and reception. They have an effect on the production of literature as well. Both authors and publishers know that they produce for a small and well-delimited market with quite specific expectations shaped by national literary traditions and discourses. The impact of these limitations on multilingual authors and their choice of literary language is hardly to be overestimated. The linguistic limitations imposed upon small literatures and the inequality which characterizes their relation to larger ones have been commented on frequently. In her The World Republic of Letters, Pascale Casanova describes the situation of authors from “small literatures” as “literarily deprived”, since they lack the literary capital necessary to transcend national borders and to emancipate themselves from the heteronomy of national political considerations. Without subscribing to the dramatizing diction of Casanova who, looking down from her French Parnassus, laments about the “tragic and unbearable” situations of writers who are bound to such limited literatures, she certainly has a point in directing attention to the fact that the relation between linguistic and literary spaces, large and small, is by no means based on equality.2 Indeed, there are less institutional and linguistic barriers for a book by Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, or Tahar Ben Jelloun to reach a worldwide public and become “world literature” than for a literary work by Hafid Bouazza or Marjaneh Bakhtiari, who publish in Dutch in the Netherlands and in Swedish in Sweden, respectively. No wonder, then, that Casanova enlists the Scandinavian and the Low Countries in the number of marginal literatures which import, by way of translations, more than they export.3 Moreover, discourses on national language and its varieties tend to draw more attention in small language areas and thus affect the ways in which literary languages are received and evaluated. Both in Scandinavia and in the Low Countries, language politics have been 2

Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters, trans. M.B. DeBevoise, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004, 181. 3 Ibid., 168. The case has been earlier and more soberly developed by the pioneer of polysystemic translation theory, Itamar Evan-Zohar, as explicated by Susan Bassnett: Thus, a high translation activity can be determined, among other factors, by the fact that “a literature perceives itself to be peripheral or ‘weak’ or both” (Susan Bassnett, Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell, 1993, 142).

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issues in public discourse for a long time. What comes to the surface in current debates is a feeling of having to protect or even defend the national language against, on the one hand, the outside threat of linguistic globalization (that is, Anglicization), and, on the other hand, a dissolution from the inside, caused by sub-cultural variation or by multiculturalism. That such discourses of national languages and their relation to issues of globalization and migration certainly have an impact on literary language becomes clear in many of the literary texts analysed in the essays of this volume. Likewise interesting is the fact that literature in its turn can also affect these same discourses. Raging debates on the growing popularity and acceptance of multi-ethnic youth language in the Swedish public sphere have above all originated in the increasing literary use of this language variety.4 A third reason to focus on the national preconditions of multicultural and multilingual literature is the particularity of critical and theoretical discourse. Peter V. Zima, in his Komparatistik (1992), underlines that not only literature but also theory is affected by cultural and linguistic characteristics. The task, then, is “to recognize the both culturally specific (national) and intercultural (international) quality of theories and to facilitate a dialogue”.5 We argue that this is true also for theories of globalization, migration, and the post-colonial condition. Although the theoretical and critical debate in these areas to a large degree originates in the Anglophone world, its reception in other parts of the world is shaped by respective theoretical traditions, cultural memories, and differing colonial histories. This last aspect is of obvious relevance to Scandinavia and the Low Countries, which have been engaged in colonial enterprises in very different ways and to different extents. Whereas the important role of the colonial past in the cultural memory of the Netherlands gains acknowledgement, the Swedish involvement in colonialism is not as obvious, and has never been a potent factor in Swedish self-conception. Thus, if and in which way post-colonial theory at all can be applied to an analysis of literary and cultural matters in Sweden has been subjected to debate. Given the absence of an obvious colonial past overseas, the relation of 4

See Wolfgang Behschnitt’s contribution to this volume “The Rhythm of Hip Hop: Multi-ethnic Slang in Swedish Literature After 2000”. 5 Peter V. Zima, Komparatistik: Einführung in die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Tübingen: Francke UTB, 1992, 62. All English translations are our own.

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Swedish society to national minorities, especially to the Sami people, has been described in colonial terms instead. This has had immediate consequences for the ways theoretical post-colonial matters are discussed in Sweden, for example, in the tendency to combine research on migrant communities with research on national minorities.6 This leads us to one final argument about the particularity of critical discourse on multicultural matters: such discourse is bound to institutions established within the nation state (to public agencies and academic institutions, but also to the mass media), and still more important, it is shaped by the national languages in which it is conducted (including all their current varieties, their symbolic capital, and their collective symbols, emotional values, etc.). Taking into account the vivid interrelation between literature and theory, there we have one more reason to underline the importance of a contextualizing and comparative approach to multicultural literatures and the multilingual quality of literary texts. Summarizing our argument so far, political, institutional, and linguistic preconditions cause both literature and literary criticism to develop in specific ways in different states and language areas. These particularities are especially palpable in small nations with a dominant national language, which is limited in its scope, as is the case in Denmark, Flanders, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Correspondingly, in these cases a comparative approach to the subject of multicultural and multilingual literatures seems most promising. Still, before we can engage in any such comparative study we must clarify the object of our study, the phenomenon which until now has been designated rather generally as “multicultural and multilingual literatures”. Besides, we have to explain on what grounds a comparison of these literatures can be conducted; these are the subjects dealt with here in the following two sections. 6

Both advantages and difficulties of such a combined approach can be observed in some of the research done at the Centre for Multi-ethnic Research (since 2010: Hugo Valentin-Centre) at Uppsala University, for example, the research project “De nya litteraturerna i Sverige” (“The new literatures in Sweden”), which resulted in Lars Wendelius’ Den dubbla identiteten: Immigrant- och minoritetslitteratur på svenska 1970-2000 (2002), and Litteraturens gränsland: Invandrar- och minoritetslitteratur i nordiskt perspektiv, ed. Satu Gröndahl (2002).

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“Multicultural literature” “Multicultural literature” (here used as an umbrella term for a heterogeneous group of partly overlapping literary phenomena, which all have been subjected to theoretical and political controversies in recent years, such as “immigrant literature”, “allochthoon literature”, “minority literature”, “multilingual literature”, “post-colonial literature”, “migration literature”, etc.) is an indispensable concept for understanding contemporary literature. “Multicultural literature” has achieved prominence in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Flanders, as well as in many other contemporary societies in which it has substantially shaped literary fields and discourses. To use the term as an analytical category in literary criticism requires, however, awareness of its hazards: in several respects, it is a highly problematic concept that all too easily produces a strong, but ideologically highly questionable, picture of certain literary texts and authors. The following paragraphs will therefore discuss both the problems and the possible usefulness of the idea of “multicultural literature”. Thereafter, the approach to the concept used throughout this volume will be elaborated. The rise of “multicultural literature” is paralleled by the emergence of hegemonic discourses about the multicultural character of contemporary society. We argue that these two phenomena – the emergence of multicultural literatures and the rise of discourses about cultural diversity – are dialectically intertwined. The production of multicultural literatures, as well as the construction by readers and critics of literary texts as multicultural, is enabled by the proliferation of discourses about the culturally diverse character of our post-modern times. At the same time, however, multicultural literature is one of the cultural processes conditioning the production of these discourses. The increased focus in the last decades on cultural diversity as a fundamental characteristic of our age can be exemplified by two famous (or infamous) attempts to describe current times as a historical epoch: Francis Fukuyama’s (1992) idea about the “end of history” and Samuel P. Huntington’s (1993) thesis about the “clash of civilizations”. Although Huntington’s argument in part constitutes a critical response to Fukuyama’s, both authors – as has been pointed

“Multicultural Literatures” in a Comparative Perspective

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out by Walter Benn Michaels7 – emphasize cultural difference as the essential characteristic of the global condition after the end of the Cold War. In this aspect, at least, Fukuyama’s and Huntington’s arguments coincide with the general idea about cultural difference as the underlying essence of the structure of contemporary societies, which has been one of the necessary conditions for the emergence of multicultural literature. Above all, this idea has generated an increased interest in cultural and ethnic difference. And this has, in turn, made possible, and even encouraged, the construction of literary texts written by migrants or members of ethnic/cultural minorities (or, sometimes, texts thematically addressing questions about cultural diversity) as multicultural. As will be shown in this volume, multicultural literatures are constructed in various ways at different times and in different literary spheres. At the same time, however, these constructions are responses to international discursive and ideological conditions. Therefore, they often entail similar assumptions, one of which is that multicultural literature expresses or manifests the deviance of the author’s identity from the cultural norm, and that its aim is to gain recognition for this identity. Over time, these assumptions have become part of a semiotic frame – or sometimes even a fairly rigid set of rules – for the production, reception, and treatment of literature associated with cultural difference. From a narrowly defined theoretical perspective, the idea that cultural difference constitutes a fundamental structure in contemporary social life could be critiqued as an example of essentialism. From a more explicitly political point of view, this focus on differences could be criticized for making invisible commonalities, as well as obscuring other important aspects of the social totality, such as ideological contradictions, economic inequality, etc. Nancy Fraser has, for example, argued that the “postsocialist condition” has given rise to a “political imaginary in which the central problem of justice is recognition” of identities, whereas “the question of political economy” is bracketed and “claims for social equality” are eclipsed.8 And 7

Walter Benn Michaels, The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, 12. 8 Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus: Critical reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition, New York: Routledge, 1997, 2.

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according to Michaels (in The Shape of the Signifier and The Trouble With Diversity), our epoch – which he labels “posthistoricism” – is characterized by a hegemonic interest in cultural identities and an almost absolute ignorance of questions about class and ideology. Both of these lines of critique are relevant in relation to the problematic aspects of the concept of “multicultural literature” we want to highlight. The emergence of multicultural literature in recent decades is, to a large extent, a product of the belief that cultural differences define our age. This belief leads to an exaggerated focus on cultural difference, and to the obscuring of other aspects of social reality. In the case of the construction of multicultural literatures, questions about cultural and ethnic difference are generally highlighted in a way that leads to the reduction of literary texts and their authors to expressions of cultural alterity, while every other aspect of a text or its author is made invisible or deemed irrelevant. This reduction of texts and authors to representations of pure difference contributes to the production of an othering and exoticizing picture of cultural minority identities. As such, it provides one of the conditions of existence for discourses about the importance of cultural differences on which the very idea of multicultural literatures rests. Thus, discourses about cultural diversity are dialectically intertwined not only with the construction of multicultural literatures, but also with the cultural production of an understanding of cultures as stable and distinguishable entities – an understanding which, in Seyla Benhabib’s words, belongs to “the prehistory of social theory”, but which indeed constitutes an important cultural force in today’s societies.9 That the construction of multicultural literature produces othering and exoticizing effects is evidenced by, among other things, the fact that not all works written by authors belonging to an ethnic, national, or linguistic minority are labelled “multicultural literature”. Instead, this label is often reserved for literature written by authors whose cultural background can be perceived of as being exotic in relation to the norm in the literary spheres in which they are active.10 In Sweden, 9

Seyla Benhabib, “The Liberal Imagination and the Four Dogmas of Multiculturalism”, The Yale Journal of Criticism, XXII (2004), 405. 10 This leads us further to the reflection that contemporary ideas about cultural diversity often seem to rest on old-fashioned conceptions of race. Walter Benn

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for example, literature written in Swedish by authors who have immigrated from France or Germany is seldom constructed as multicultural, whereas works by Swedish-born writers with an exoticsounding name or even just a non-Nordic physical appearance have often been placed in this category. This construction of multicultural literatures as ethnically exotic is problematic from the perspective of recognition politics – that is, a politics aiming at gaining recognition for identities – in general. But it may also have negative impacts on the status in the literary field of authors whose work is constructed as multicultural. Since this construction mainly rests on non-literary phenomena, such as the author’s ethnic background, these authors are frequently (but not always) assigned a place near the bottom of the field’s hierarchy, and their work is often excluded from the realm of literature as art.11 We believe that the problematic aspects of the concept of multicultural literature discussed above need to be recognized. At the same time, however, we understand that the concept has progressive dimensions. Above all, its emergence constitutes a critical response to the obscuring of “sub-national cultural and social experiences” produced by the promotion of national literary heritages during the last centuries.12 Thus, multicultural literatures (together with phenomena such as working-class literature, women’s literature, etc.) represent a challenge to what Stuart Hall has called the “idea of

Michaels, for example, has put forward the argument that one of the reasons behind the turn to culture in recent decades is the result of an attempt to move beyond race which has failed since the hegemonic understanding of culture is “utterly dependent on race” (The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality, New York: Metropolitan, 2006, 43). 11 See Magnus Nilsson’s analysis of immigrant writers in the literary field in Sweden (Den föreställda mångkulturen: Klass och etnicitet i svensk samtidsprosa, Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2010), as well as Wolfgang Behschnitt and Thomas Mohnike’s analysis of the relationship between the notion of literary authenticity hegemonic in the modern literary field and the notion of ethnic authenticity characteristic of the construction of Swedish immigrant literature (“Interkulturelle Authentizität? Überlegungen zur ‘anderen’ Ästhetik der schwedischen ‘invandrarlitteratur’”, in Über Grenzen: Grenzgänge der Skandinavistik, eds Wolfgang Behschnitt and Elisabeth Hermann, Würzburg: Ergon, 2007, 79-100). 12 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage, London: Routledge, 2006, 30.

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Heritage”.13 Hall proposes that “The Heritage” (by which he means the national heritage) be viewed as “a discursive practice”, as “one of the ways in which the nation slowly constructs for itself a sort of collective social memory”, by “selectively binding … chosen high points and memorable achievements into an unfolding ‘national story’”. That this practice is selective means that at the same time as it “highlights and foregrounds”, it also “foreshortens, silences, disavows, forgets and elides”.14 Consequently, heritage, in Hall’s words, is “always inflected by the power and authority of those who have colonised the past, whose versions of history matter”. The emergence of multicultural literatures can be seen as a return of some of the things repressed in what Hall calls “the Heritage’s version of the dominant national narrative”.15 Thereby, it contributes to “a major transformation in our relation to the activity of constructing a ‘Heritage’”. This transformation is described by Hall as “a number of conceptual shifts” that, taken together, mark “an unsettling and subversion of the foundational ground on which the process of heritage-construction has until very recently proceeded”, including: … a radical awareness by the marginalised of the symbolic power involved in the activity of representation; a growing sense of the centrality of culture and its relation to identity; the rise amongst the excluded of a ‘politics of recognition’ along the older politics of equality; a growing reflexivity about the constructed and thus contestable nature of the authority which some people acquire to ‘write the culture’ of others; a decline in the acceptance of the traditional authorities in authenticating the interpretative and analytic frameworks which classify, place, compare and evaluate culture; and the concomitant rise in the demand to re-appropriate control over the ‘writing of one’s own story’ as part of cultural liberation ….16

Do the problematic aspects and ideological hazards of the concept of multicultural literature, then, foreclose its use in literary analysis? Or 13

Stuart Hall, “Whose Heritage? Un-settling ‘The Heritage’, Re-imagining the Postnation”, Third Text, XXIII/49 (Winter 1999-2000), 7. 14 Ibid., 5. 15 Ibid., 6. 16 Ibid., 7-8.

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do its progressive potentials – above all its potential to make visible the symbolic power involved in literary representations of the world and of various identities – warrant its use for strategic reasons? We are convinced that the concept still can be useful, as long as it is neither considered to be an unproblematic object of literary research, nor used as a tool to classify authors and texts. Instead, we argue that the concept of multicultural literature should be seen as a – obviously relevant and influential – category within contemporary literary discourse and literary practice, as well as within the social totality in general. Understood as a discursive and historical construction, it can help us to gain a better understanding of the production and reception of literary texts. It can also shed light on the dialectical interrelation between literature and other cultural (for example, ideological) and non-cultural processes in the social totality of the nation state. Of special interest here are – as we have demonstrated above – the hegemonic discourses about the culturally diverse nature of contemporary societies. This leads us back to our point of departure: that multicultural literatures, as historically specific discursive constructions, are substantially informed by the national context in which they are situated and that they should be analysed with respect to this specific context. How can “multicultural literature” be studied in a comparative perspective? How do we get, then, from a description of multicultural literature in its specific national context to an inter-national comparison? The question of how literary phenomena from different national, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds can be compared has been a fundamental issue in theoretical debates within the field of Comparative Literature: what is the object of comparison (texts, themes, genres, contexts, etc.)? And with which methods and based on which common ground, by which tertium comparationis, can literature be compared? That these are recurrent themes of theoretical reflection is confirmed by the “State of the Discipline Report 2004” of the American Comparative Literature Association, which explicitly tackles the problems of

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Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization.17 One possible answer, fitting the specific needs of our topic, is suggested by Ronald Greene in his contribution “Not Works but Networks”. Greene proposes that the object of Comparative Literature are “literatures under negotiation”, or “the exchanges out of which literatures are made: the economies of knowledge, social relations, power, and especially art that make literatures possible”.18 It is not difficult to see that this quite general concept of “Networks” as objects of literary comparison corresponds to our more concrete suggestion to conceive of multicultural literatures as discursive practices, as products of aesthetic, political, and economic negotiations. Where Greene says, “to speak of literatures is to document and theorize the transactions out of which works, genres, and periods arise”, we would specify: to speak of multicultural literatures is to document and theorize the transactions out of which multicultural works and authors arise. What is to be compared then, in the contributions to this volume, are not novels or poems belonging to a given field of multicultural literature, but the processes that turn these novels or poems into multicultural literature. The description of these processes are a precondition for a comparative approach directed toward the frames and rules that shape the field of multicultural literature, and to the ways literary texts relate to them and engage in a debate about literature, language, and multiculturalism. Still following Greene, such a shift of attention leads to seemingly paradoxical consequences: the most promising kind of comparative research, then, would be the academic who engages most meticulously into a national literary field’s specific social and linguistic frameworks, because such an analysis provides the preconditions for any meaningful comparison.19 Another aspect of crucial interest for our subject has received considerable attention in current theoretical debate: the trans- and multilingual dimension of literature in the era of globalization. 17 Haun Saussy, “Exquisite Cadavers Stitched from Fresh Nightmares: Of Memes, Hives, and Selfish Genes”, in Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, ed. Haun Saussy, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006, 3-42. 18 Ronald Greene, “Not Works but Networks: Colonial Worlds in Comparative Literature”, in ibid., 2006, 214. 19 Ibid., 221.

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Already in 1993, Susan Bassnett, in her introductory but likewise programmatic Comparative Literature, posited quite provocatively that the future development of the discipline would lead “From Comparative Literature to Translation Studies”, as the heading of her final chapter goes.20 Translation, for Bassnett, is more than a mere linguistic transfer: pointing to post-colonial theory, it can be conceived as a cultural transformation shaped by intercultural hierarchies and power relations. Challenging the conventional idea of translation as a one-way process in which the translator servilely complies with the authority of the original and the target text appears as secondary and subordinate, Bassnett proposes a concept of translation as appropriation and reformulation of canonical texts.21 Even if problems of translation are not at the core of the articles in this volume, the concept of translating languages, literatures, and cultures is substantial for multicultural literature and especially its multilingual aspects. Interrelations within canonical texts, as highlighted by Bassnett, can be found in many literary texts analysed in the articles of this volume: Hafid Bouazza refers to Ovid’s metamorphoses, suggesting parallels between these and changes connected to migration; the poet Johannes Anyuru re-uses Homer’s Iliad and the figure of the wrathful Achilles to illustrate the frustration of young men in the multicultural suburban ghetto;22 and the firstperson narrator Halim in Jonas Khemiri’s Ett öga rött sneers at Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and its “obscure” language, calling the hero “Per Tönt” (“Peter Stupid”).23 Such appropriations bring to the fore the matter of cultural relations as linguistic relations. In the case of Anyuru and Khemiri, language issues are not only present on the thematic level but also 20

Bassnett, Comparative Literature, 158. Bassnett’s most elucidating case is the metaphor of cannibalism drawn from the Brazilian modernist Antropofagista movement and used within Brazilian translation theory and practice: “The antropófagos suggested that the European models should be devoured, so that their virtues would then pass into the works of Brazilian writers .… the Brazilian writer interacts with the source culture, drawing upon it for nourishment but creating something entirely new” (ibid., 154). 22 In his debut volume of poetry Det är bara gudarna som är nya (Only the Gods Are New, Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 2003). 23 Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Ett öga rött, Stockholm: Norstedts, 2003, 28. For a more elaborated discussion of these texts’ relations to canonical literature, see the contributions of Louwerse, Behschnitt, and Nilsson in this volume. 21

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displayed in the linguistic dimension of the texts. Both, in very different ways, exhibit an explicitly multilingual text. Such texts would be the primary objects of a new Comparative Literature as designed in Emily Apter’s study The Translation Zone. Apter turns literature’s multilingualism and translingual relations to a core area of comparative studies: “A new comparative literature … expands centripetally toward a genuinely planetary criticism, extending emphasis on the transference of texts from one language to another, to criticism of the processes of linguistic creolization, the multilingual practices of poets and novelists over a vast range of major and ‘minor’ literatures, and the development of new languages by marginal groups all over the world.”24 Multilingual features of the literary text, thus, are both an important aspect of the discursive construction of multicultural literature, and, at the same time, a textual strategy to put into question hegemonic languages and cultures. What, then, are the consequences of these theoretical reflections on the concept of multicultural literature and the possibilities of a comparative approach? They show, first of all, that the approach of this volume – to view multicultural and multilingual literatures in a comparative perspective – is situated at the crossroads of current research into multicultural literature and recent trends within Comparative Literature. However, while much research on multicultural and multilingual literature departs from an interest in the relation between textual multilingualism and the individual biographical background of the author, we advocate a focus on multilingualism’s specific effects for the construction of the text as multicultural and its further implications for discourses on multicultural literature and society. Concluding, we can formulate five fundamental points of departure for the contributions to this volume: 1. “Multicultural literature” is regarded as a category within contemporary literary discourse and literary practice – not as a given field of authors and works. 2. Consequently, what is to be compared are “not works but networks” (following Ronald Greene). The common ground of our 24 Emily Apter, The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, 10.

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comparative approach is the discursive processes and negotiations that produce and shape the discursive category of multicultural literature. Still, no study of these negotiations may neglect the literary texts in so far as they participate in the shaping of the discourse: mirroring its conditions, intervening, and reformulating them. 3. Neither multicultural literatures, nor the cultural contexts in which they are embedded, are homogeneous and clearly delimited areas. They are internally differentiated, illogically disrupted, “inter-” and “trans-” cultural from the beginning. (There is nothing like an “authentic” culture.) Instead, they are shaped by continuous cultural and linguistic transfers. A comparative approach, therefore, should direct attention both to external differences and commonalities between literatures and to their internal differentiations. 4. The linguistic transfers are determined by hierarchies and inequalities. Literary texts mirror and participate in the struggles between dominating languages (for example, “world languages”, national standards) and subordinated languages and varieties. In our context, we observe a double tension: the “small” or “peripheral” national languages – Danish, Dutch, and Swedish – struggling against the threat of linguistic globalization on the one hand, and minority languages or varieties intervening into the domain of national standards on the other hand. 5. Multilingualism in literary texts does not evolve naturally from its author’s linguistic background. Nor does it mirror authentically the languages or varieties used in a given society. A text’s multilingual dimension must be understood in relation to the linguistic context and the language struggles that characterize this context. Again, our main issue is not the (multilingual) work, but (multilingual) networks.

MULTILINGUALISM AND DIGLOSSIA IN MIGRATION LITERATURE: THE CASE OF FLEMISH SONGS IN NORTHERN FRANCE ELIEN DECLERCQ AND MICHAEL BOYDEN

Multicultural literature constitutes a domain par excellence to study the impact of the sociolinguistic situation on its individual linguistic form: how is the linguistic situation represented in the literary text? What is the relation between the status of a language or language variety and its stereotypical representation in the text? Does the author create a new literary language? If the author is a migrant, how does he/she valorize his/her own native language? Does he/she assimilate the language(s) or language varieties of the host society? Multicultural literature – and in our case, migration literature – is inextricably bound up with multilingualism (see Behschnitt & Nilsson’s introductory article to this volume). In what follows, we will focus more specifically on the staging of languages in multilingual migration literature and its possible functions. In order to understand the linguistic mechanisms within the literary text, we will first elaborate some concepts developed in sociolinguistic theory: diglossia, bilingualism/multilingualism, and code switching/mixing. In a second step, we will look to how such phenomena are textualized or metaphorized in migration literature. To this end, we will further distinguish between literary and textual bilingualism/multilingualism (that is, the variation of languages or language varieties between and within texts, respectively). We want to argue that the literary responses to migration in literature are much more complex and variegated than is usually supposed in sociolinguistic theory. We will corroborate this claim by looking at variations between languages in popular songs in the context of Flemish migration to Northern France around 1900 (Franco-Flemish hybridization) and its impact on the identity construction of the migrant author, negotiated

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in response to hegemonic language ideologies. Most studies focus all attention on the “age of migration”, the period of decolonization which resulted in large-scale migration from Third World countries to the West.1 By focusing on a case from an earlier period (1875-1914), we want to break open the presentism of research on migration literature and establish some continuities between past and present. Methodological considerations In this section, we will first present some general insights from sociolinguistics concerning diglossia and multilingualism, with which literary scholars may not be familiar. In a second step, we will attempt to operationalize these insights for the study of literary multilingualism in view of our case study in the section Literary and Textual Multilingualism. We want to stress beforehand, as translation scholars have repeatedly done, that the representation of multilingualism in fiction does not mimetically reproduce the way language functions in society.2 Therefore, analytical categories introduced below should be understood in relation to the ways in which works of literature highlight the interplay of languages rather than as instruments for capturing actual language contact in society. Diglossia and multilingualism The concept of diglossia was introduced half a century ago by Charles A. Ferguson, who used it in a very specific sense to refer to cases where there is functional complementarity between high and low varieties of the same language, meaning that there is a strict boundary between these varieties in terms of the social functions with which they are associated: Diglossia is a relatively stable language situation in which … there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech 1

Søren Frank, Migration and Literature: Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, and Jan Kjarstad, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 2 Rainier Grutman, Des langues qui résonnent: L’hétérolinguisme au XIXe siècle québécois, Montreal: Fides, 1997; “Refraction and Recognition: Literary Multilingualism in Translation”, Target: International Journal of Translation Studies, XVIII/1 (2006), 18.

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community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any section of the community for ordinary conversation.3

When he coined the concept, Ferguson had in mind a very specific sociolinguistic constellation, that is, the co-presence of a classical, high variety (henceforth H variety), used exclusively for access to formal institutions, next to and apart from a low variety (henceforth L variety), reserved for everyday interaction, as in the case of classical versus vernacular Arabic. In such contexts, there is a strict functional division between the varieties insofar as classical Arabic is only used in church or school, and vernacular Arabic only in the home or on the street.4 Precisely this strict allocation of codes, Ferguson argued, explains the historical persistence of the diglossic arrangement. This is only possible, he added, if the H variety is no one’s first language, that is if it is learned in a formal institution outside the home as a formal variant of L. For this reason, he conceived of diglossia as something distinct from societal multilingualism, in the sense that the H and L varieties in diglossic societies are genetically related, that is, they are variants of the same language. Since Ferguson first introduced his definition of diglossia, much ink has been spilled on its usefulness for sociolinguistic research (for an overview of debates and disagreements, see the 2002 special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language entirely devoted to Ferguson’s concept). Many sociolinguists now use the concept of diglossia in other contexts as well, where there is some form of functional allocation of codes. This is thanks mainly to Joshua Fishman, who modified Ferguson’s definition in two ways.5 First, he pleaded to reinterpret diglossia as a form of, rather than something distinct from, societal multilingualism. This allowed him to create a 3

Charles A. Ferguson, “Diglossia”, Word, XV/2 (1959), 336. This diglossic situation constitutes, for example, an interesting challenge for the Moroccan migrant writer who decides to write in Arabic as opposed to the language of the host society. He or she may decide to either use Classical Arabic (which is far removed from everyday speech) or attempt to convey dialect, which has not been codified as a written language (Nijborg and Laroui, “The Emergence of a DutchMoroccan Literature”, in this volume). 5 Joshua Fishman, “Bilingualism and Biculturalism as Individual and as Societal Phenomena”, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, I/1 (March 1980), 4. 4

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typology of different types of diglossia in various constellations. Apart from some cases, such as classical and vernacular Arabic, Fishman also considered varieties not genetically related, such as Hebrew/Aramaic and Yiddish. Further, he broadened the notion of diglossia to include formal and informal variants not necessarily falling within the dichotomy between (written) sacred and (spoken) profane languages, which appears to have been a requirement for Ferguson. As a consequence, Spanish and Guaraní in Paraguay (genetically unrelated) and Standard English and Caribbean creole (genetically related) came within the purview of sociolinguistic theorizing. It speaks for itself that these cases are also more interesting for scholars working on multilingual literature today.6 A second way Fishman dynamized Ferguson’s concept of diglossia was by bringing it into relation with psychological research on bilingualism. Although diglossia occurs on the societal level and bilingualism on the psychological level (as an individual property or competency), Fishman argued that both can and should be studied together. By integrating sociolinguistic research on diglossia and psycholinguistic research on bilingualism, Fishman hoped to incorporate the factor of change into Ferguson’s rather static definition, so that it would become possible to predict or avert language shift. To this end, Fishman charted the possible relations between diglossia and bilingualism in a four-fold table:7 + diglossia

– diglossia

+ bilingualism

1. Both diglossia and bilingualism.

2. Bilingualism without diglossia.

– bilingualism

3. Diglossia without bilingualism.

4. Neither diglossia nor bilingualism.

Table 1 6

See the case of Standard Swedish and multi-ethnic slang studies in the contribution of Wolfgang Behschnitt in this volume. 7 Joshua Fishman, “Bilingualism With and Without Diglossia; Diglossia With and Without Bilingualism”, in The Bilingualism Reader, 2nd edn, ed. Li Wei, London and New York: Routledge, 2007, 47-54.

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The fourth quadrant presents something of a limit case. Only very small and isolated communities display neither diglossia nor bilingualism. Even in such contexts, as Fishman stressed, there is usually some form of differentiation between everyday and ritualized or more formal language uses. However, in modern societies – by which Fishman means societies that have been subject to the effects of industrialization, and which are perhaps more relevant to our discussion of migration literature – the sociolinguistic situation is bound to be more complex. The first quadrant (both diglossia and bilingualism) corresponds more or less to Ferguson’s classical conception of diglossia, except that in Fishman’s extended definition non-genetic diglossia also belongs to this category. The thing to note here is that there is almost no overlap in role distribution between the two languages, and that almost everybody has ready access to these roles. For instance, in Hasidic communities, everybody understands Yiddish and Hebrew but nobody would think of using the latter in everyday conversation or the former in religious settings. Cases where there is a clear compartmentalization of languages but no ready access to roles are discussed by Fishman in terms of “diglossia without bilingualism” (quadrant 3). An example would be the relation between French and Provençal before the First World War, or French and Flemish in Belgium up to the 1950s, where French was the language of the elite and Provençal/Flemish the language of the common people. In Ferguson’s strict formulation, this would have been an instance of standard-with-dialect or societal bilingualism rather than diglossia, since the functional distribution is regulated not by the context of use but principally by the social identity of the speakers. Since there is clearly a strict functional division between the H and L varieties, Fishman claimed it is justified to discuss such cases as instances of diglossia. The difference with the prototypical cases of diglossia (quadrant 1) is that, in the case of diglossia without bilingualism, the functional allocation of codes serves to uphold a class system based on asymmetrical access to the H variety. What is important, for Fishman, is that in both constellations the functional separation of codes guarantees the persistence of the L variety over time as a vernacular, while the H variety may be under threat of displacement as a result of democratization and generalized literacy

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(as appears from the decreasing resistance of the H standard against encroachment by elements from the L varieties in formal contexts). Precisely the opposite dynamic is at work in instances which in Fishman’s model are rendered as “bilingualism without diglossia” (quadrant 2). Here, the tendency is for the H variety to eventually invade and displace the L variety rather than the other way around. This, for Fishman, is the case in modern, industrialized societies with a strong division of labour between speech communities: The history of industrialization in the Western world ... is such that the means (capital, plant, organization) of production were often derived from one speech community while the productive manpower was drawn from another. Initially both speech communities may have maintained their separate diglossia-with-bilingualism patterns, or, alternatively, that of an over-arching diglossia without bilingualism. In either case, the needs as well as the consequences of rapid and massive industrialization and urbanization were frequently such that members of the speech community providing a productive workforce rapidly abandoned their traditional sociocultural patterns and learned (or were taught) the language of the means of production much earlier than their absorption into the socio-cultural patterns and privileges to which that language pertained. In response to this imbalance some react (or reacted) by further stressing the advantages of the newly gained language of education and industry while others react (or reacted) by seeking to replace the latter by an elaborated version of their own largely pre-industrial, pre-urban, pre-mobilization tongue.8

The relation between migrant languages and national standards is considered a typical example of “bilingualism without diglossia”.9 Since migrants are frequently under strong pressure to adapt to the norms of the dominant culture, they are likely to abandon their first language after three generations (or less) in the new country. With national minorities struggling for representation, if the struggle proves successful, the general drift will be for the national culture to eventually sanction their vernacular as a means to safeguard equality of all citizens in the public sphere, and even to discard the elite 8

Fishman, “Bilingualism With and Without Diglossia”, 51. Suzanne Romaine, Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, 49.

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language altogether as unrepresentative or undemocratic.10 Migrants, however, are in a different situation insofar as they have to prove their eligibility as citizens by learning the standard language of the host society.11 Something similar can be said about indigenous peoples whose languages are displaced by that of a colonizing power. Here, the general drift is for the imported language to survive and eventually replace the indigenous language. We find Fishman’s table illuminating for the ways it shows in which contexts languages interact (resulting in language shift or pidginization) or remain apart (resulting in stability or standardization). It will help us to explain why writers may choose to mix languages in their fiction or refrain from doing so. Before showing how Fishman’s typology can be made serviceable for the study of multicultural literature, we want to note two things. First, the model deals with speech communities, whereas we are interested in the linguistic choices made by individual authors. As noted above, this means we will have to rewrite these sociolinguistic considerations in view of what happens in literary texts, which seldom correspond to real-life interaction. Second, Fishman’s model is itself a simplification of reality insofar as it presents us with ideal-typical clusters. As Fishman himself notes, the sociolinguistic reality may be much more complex, as there are often several Hs and/or several Ls within one community.12 This is particularly relevant in relation to multicultural literatures, which often deal with situations where one speech community is grafted onto another, both of which may or may not be characterized by diglossic arrangements.

10

The language situation in Sweden is a good example for the difference in status between migrant and minority languages. Whereas there are five official minority languages that receive government support, migrant languages are not supported in any way, though the number of speakers may be much higher than that of some officially recognized minority languages (see Nilsson’s contribution in this volume). 11 For the present purpose, we will not address the question as to whether it is feasible or even possible to make a theoretical distinction between national minorities and migrant groups. Arguments for and against, and what they entail for the linguistic justice debate, are discussed in Language Rights and Political Theory, eds Will Kymlicka and Alan Patten, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 12 Fishman, “Bilingualism and Biculturalism”, 4-5.

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Literary and textual multilingualism In what follows, we will be concerned specifically with what happens in quadrant 2 of Fishman’s typology, representing a situation of nondiglossic bilingualism. In such a context, as Fishman indicates, bilingualism is typically a transitional phenomenon, because the L and H varieties compete within the same functional domains, so that one inevitably displaces the other. While we subscribe to Fishman’s general model, we are of the opinion it only partly captures the language dynamics at play in, and expressed through, multicultural writings. For one thing, in defiance of the general drift described in Fishman’s model, multicultural authors continue to draw on the L variety even after three generations. In his 1978 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Isaac Bashevis Singer famously asserted that he wrote in what he called “a dying language” because he believed in resurrection.13 Even today, in spite of the dwindling number of Yiddish speakers, Yiddish literature still interests many readers. On the reception side, also, readers continue to enjoy such writings, even if they are not or no longer a member of the bilingual speech community from which these writings originated. Therefore, although it circulates within a non-diglossic context in which language shift may be unavoidable, multicultural literature appears to display specific built-in functional protections that guarantee the survival of the threatened variety against all odds. Our aim here is to develop adequate conceptual tools to make sense of this dynamic. In the domain of literature, bilingualism usually manifests itself in either of two ways: it may be visible either in the choice of a particular language for the creation of a text, or in the co-presence of different languages or varieties in the work itself.14 The first form of bilingualism is referred to as literary bilingualism, or, in French, bilinguisme d’écriture (a term for which we have not found a useful English equivalent). Many young children in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium have grown up reading the Vlaamse 13

Issac Bashevis Singer, “Isaac Bashevis Singer – Banquet Speech”, 10 December 1978: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1978/singer-speech. html (accessed 12 September 2011). 14 Rainier Grutman, “Bilinguisme/plurilinguisme”, in Vocabulaire des études francophones: les concepts de base, eds Michel Beniamino and Lise Gauvin, Limoges: Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 2005, 29-31.

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Filmpjes by John Flanders, Flemish stories for children in Catholic schools. At a later stage, some of them may have read the French horror fiction of Jean Ray. Very few people, however, know that John Flanders and Jean Ray are both pen names of Raymond Jean De Kremer, a highly prolific author who lived in the Belgian city of Ghent (where French was for a long time spoken alongside Dutch). In the case of De Kremer, Dutch was obviously a medium for addressing a broad, non-literary audience in a substandard genre, while French (which up until the reforms of higher education served as the language of the upper classes in Flanders) allowed the author to gain recognition in Parisian high culture (albeit through a low genre such as horror fiction). Because De Kremer wrote under pseudonyms, the reader was never encouraged to explore the interconnections in his split oeuvre. This was precisely the point, since writing children’s literature in a minor language may have detracted from the standing of a high brow francophone author. This is a clear case of diglossic bilingualism: the choice of Dutch or French here depends on the situational context, not on the identity of the author. Comparable cases of literary bilingualism are the Swedish and Greek works of Kallifatides,15 and the Italian and Danish novels of Giacobbe.16 The second form of bilingualism is called textual bilingualism, or what Grutman describes as heterolingualism. Most examples discussed in this volume are cases of this form of bilingualism. Here, the opposite dynamic appears to be at work. The reader is supposed to notice that different voices are competing for dominance in the text or that bilinguism is used as an element of local colour. This is a typical non-diglossic configuration: the surface language is as if it were inscribed by another language. The dominance of the authoritative code is questioned from the inside out through the introduction of nonstandard expressions or even poor grammar. This kind of linguistic variation is usually not a function of the context of use, but of the social identity of the author. However, as we will explain in more detail below, the fact that language use is conditioned by the identity of the user does not preclude the possibility that an author may 15

See Peter Leonard’s contribution to this volume “Bi- and Multilingual Aspects in the Literary Writing of Translingual Authors in Sweden”. 16 See Søren Frank’s contribution to this volume “Is There or Is There Not a Literature of Migration in Denmark?”.

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manipulate the expectations associated with a specific linguistically codified identity. Thus, even when they are subverted, identity concerns may motivate language choices. Textual bilingualism of this kind is prevalent, for instance, in many postcolonial texts (for example, Patrick Chamoiseau, Junot Díaz, José María Arguedas, and many others). As the authors of the pioneering study The Empire Writes Back argue, postcolonial writing is largely concerned with “the process by which the language, with its power, and the writing, with its signification and authority, has been wrested from the dominant European culture”.17 Thus, the textualization of bilingualism, that is, its manifestation on a text-internal level rather than its functional deployment in specific contexts, here appears to be crucial. Although we have distinguished between literary and textual bilingualism as diglossic and non-diglossic configurations respectively, it would be wrong to suppose that there would be no code specialization in the latter category. It is very common, for instance, for an author to reserve the dominant language code for the narrator’s voice and to make use of codeswitching and codemixing in the dialogues between the characters. It would be more precise, therefore, to distinguish between different degrees of textualization of bilingualism and diglossia. This being said, the dominant manifestations of textual bilingualism appear to be codeswitching and codemixing. These forms of language contact are commonly defined as “the use of more than one language in the course of a single communicative episode”.18 While codeswitching generally refers to alternations between codes across sentences, codemixing consists of alternations between codes within a phrase.19 Codeswitching, however, is often used as an umbrella concept to designate both. As to the use of these techniques in literary texts, one may think of lexical

17

Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures, 2nd edn, London and New York: Routledge, 2002, 7. 18 Monica Heller, Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1988, 1. 19 Miriam Meyerhoff, Introduction to Sociolinguistics, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, 116 and 120.

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borrowings, new syntactic formulations, and the literal translation of idiomatic expressions (calques or loan translations).20 Drawing on Fishman’s typology, we can now visualize the options available to multicultural authors in another table. As we hope, this should result in a more dynamic model of possible language strategies in multicultural literature than those suggested by Fishman’s model. As with Fishman’s typology, we here assume for clarity’s sake that the multicultural author has to negotiate between two codes. However, as our case study will show, there are often more codes involved, since in both cultures there may be diglossic and/or bilingual speech communities, which considerably adds to the complexity of the sociolinguistic situation: + diglossia

– diglossia

+ bilingualism

1. Multicultural authors writing in different codes in different contexts (= literary bilingualism/ multilingualism).

2. Multicultural authors mixing codes for literary purposes (= textual bilingualism/ multilingualism).

– bilingualism

3. Complete language shift.

4. Pidginization.

Table 2

While quadrants 3 and 4 can be said to embody the options available to migrant speech communities as discussed by Fishman (bilingualism as a “transitional” phenomenon, resulting in complete language loss and/or pidginization), quadrants 1 and 2 are more interesting in view of the literary representation of diglossia and bilingualism in multicultural literature. It may be true that many migrants or colonized peoples eventually lose their first language, and have to resort to either the H variety of the host culture or a pidginized version of the vernacular they no longer entirely command. It is equally probable they are highly familiar with both the pre-contact vernacular and the H 20 Elien Declercq and Lieven D’hulst, “The Fate of a Migrant Language in Northern France (1880–1914): Flemish in Song Repertoire”, International Journal of Multilingualism, VII/3 (22 March 2010), 255-268.

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and L varieties of the host culture and operationalize them for very specific purposes to create literary effects. Literary and textual bilingualism can thus be approached as possible literary responses to the sociolinguistic realities of language shift and pidginization. It remains to be examined how this develops historically, that is whether or not these literary strategies develop apace with the process of linguistic erosion. The manner in which a writer represents diglossia and bilingualism in literature is a matter of individual choice. But such choices are often market-driven. The enormous success of migration literature, and even the phenomenon of fake migration literature, whereby an author adopts the codes of a migrant community to attract a wider audience, already shows the importance of such market forces,21 which contradict the rigid unidirectionality of language shift in Fishman’s model. What concerns us in what follows are the ways in which functional restrictions on language use percolate into individual literary works, and how migrant authors play with the expectations attached to the sociocultural roles assigned to them by society. Literary bilingualism entails that migrant authors tend to be almost equally at ease in two codes, both of which they use for their literary output. This does not seem to be a necessary requirement for textual bilinguals, who often display a real or supposed imbalance in terms of proficiency in two or several codes. To put this in a different way, while textual bilinguals are often primary or hereditary bilinguals, that is they have learned the L variety in the home but were educated in the H variety and perhaps started their literary career using that H variety, literary bilinguals are normally what one could call sequential bilinguals: they have learned an H variety (next to one or more L varieties) in the home culture, which they may have used for literary purposes before the moment of resettling in the new culture. As they gain access to the literary institutions of the host culture, however, these writers adopt a new H variety as their own, which they sometimes use alongside the former H variety. With such writers, 21

That migrant slang and code switching can become fashionable and attractive for authors without migrant background is manifest, for example, in the case of the Swedish author Jens Lapidus and his bestseller novel Snabba cash (Easy Money, 2006), a thriller situated in the Stockholm underworld where the main characters’ idioms are coloured by their respective milieus and language backgrounds.

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moreover, one often discerns a taboo on self-translation in the sense that they tend to keep their codes rigorously apart to the degree that they refrain from translating their own words into one or the other language, despite excellent proficiency in both and despite producing creative work in both. Alternatively, when translating their own work, they will do so very liberally to the point of rewriting the original in another first language, as is the case with Canadian-born novelist Nancy Huston, who writes in French and English and translates her own work. This is very different with textual bilinguals, who conceive of their writing as a process of continual self-translation, a continual search for the right word to express their sense of allegiance to two or more speech communities. Often, these textual bilinguals are minority authors who attempt to infect the dominant language with their own speech ways. To put things somewhat provocatively, while sequential bilingualism can be described as a form of linguistic dissociative identity, textual bilingualism comes closer to linguistic schizophasia, with no apparent boundary between codes. To repeat, we are dealing with ideal-typical cases, as one and the same author may very well decide to write in a pure way on one occasion by keeping the codes rigorously apart, and freely alternate codes on another, depending on the genre or the context of use. The strategic difference between code dissociation and code conflation also pervades the intended and/or actual readerships of literary and textual bilinguals. Literary bilinguals often use language as an audience selector, showing little or no inclination to bridge the distance between the expectational horizons of the speech communities they address. These communities will in their turn evaluate these authors’ oeuvre for their contribution to their culture and language and would object to excessive interference of alien codes. The taboo of self-translation on the part of the author on the one hand is thus matched by a remarkable tolerance for translation on the part of the readership on the other (as when Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians construct their own nationally defined versions of Adam Mickiewicz’s oeuvre, based on selective translation). From their part, textual bilinguals address varied audiences which usually do appreciate the interplay of codes, which they may or may not grasp in

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its entirety, but which they approach as an enrichment rather than an impoverishment of their speech community.22 In what follows, we will apply the conceptual framework developed in the previous paragraphs to a set of songs produced in workers’ communities in the Northern French industrial cities which accommodated a large number of Flemish Belgian migrants in the latter part of the nineteenth century. We will argue that in these popular songs, inscribed in a multilingual context made up by French, Picard dialects, and Flemish migrant languages, the staging of the language codes manifests itself in two ways: literary and textual multilingualism, two forms of intentional use of two or more languages or language varieties within or between texts. Diglossia and multilingualism in Flemish migrant songs (Northern France, 1870–1914) During the second half of the nineteenth century, Northern France accommodated about 500,000 Belgians, especially Flemings (88% of the Belgians who came to Roubaix, for example, originated from the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium).23 Their presence was a consequence of a cross-border migration triggered by an ongoing economic and social crisis in Flanders. More precisely, crises in agriculture and in the linen industry resulted in unemployment, which incited Belgians to look for a better life on the other side of the border where a steady industrial development was taking shape. The Northern Department concentrated mainly on textile production in all its aspects, but the heavy industries also profited from the economic boost. In need of labour supply, employers engaged Belgians to work in their mills, who were often willing to work for lower wages and were reputedly more docile as they feared expulsion in case of problems. In Lille, the most important city in the Northern region, between 1870 and 1890 about a quarter of the population was of Belgian origin. The neighbouring satellite town of Roubaix presented a far more extreme case: here, the success of the local textile industry attracted thousands 22

This applies perfectly to the enthusiasm for literary texts that use multi-ethnic slang, which Wolfgang Behschnitt deals with in “The Rhythm of Hip Hop” in this volume. 23 Jacques Dupâquier, “La contribution des Belges à la formation de la population française (1851–1940): Étude quantitative”, in Historiens et populations, ed. Société Belge de Démographie, Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia, 1991, 341.

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of immigrants (more than half of the population between 1872 and 1886).24 Before the arrival of the Flemish immigrants, the local sociolinguistic situation entailed a variation between French, the language of the upper classes, and the local dialect Picard,25 spoken by the workers. While French was consistently used for formal communication, education, sermons, newspapers, etc., Picard was dominant in the home and daily life.26 Unsurprisingly, when they arrived in France, Flemish workers were confronted with this diglossic situation. As they first came in contact with the Picard dialect on the shop floor and in the workers’ quarters, it took them longer to learn standard French. Usually, thanks to Jules Ferry’s school system it was left up to the second generation to learn French.27 The Flemish migrant language did not acquire a rightful place within this diglossic situation. Flemish was spoken at home, within migrant associations, and neighbourhoods and cafés were often marked with “Men spreekt Vlaams” (“one speaks Flemish here”) notices. Even where Flemish migrants formed a majority in certain neighbourhoods (Wazemmes) and cities (Halluin, Roubaix), they generally abandoned their language after three generations. The strong French assimilationist language policy (institutional monolingualism) functioned as an efficient instrument for blocking out local dialects, regional languages, and migrant languages. Popular songs constitute an interesting case for studying the textualization of the multilingual and diglossic situation within which the Flemish migrants were involved. Around 1850, new institutions of popular distraction such as the café-concert or the cabaret emerged in Paris. With some delay, more modest or informal versions of these 24

For an overview, see Firmin Lentacker, La frontière franco-belge: Étude géographique des effets d’une frontière internationale sur la vie de relations, Lille: Morel and Corduant, 1974. 25 Picard is a spoken language in the department Nord-Pas-de-Calais (except for the Flemish-speaking district of Dunkerque), in Picardy (except for the southern borderland), and in the west of the Belgian province Hainaut. 26 Eugène Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976, 84. 27 The two most noteworthy laws implemented by Jules Ferry were the law of 16 June 1881, making primary education free of charge, and that of 28 March 1882, which made all public education secular and compulsory for all children (thus also for migrant children) from ages 6 to 13.

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practices penetrated the popular urban culture of the French peripheral Northern Department: the cabaret, also called estaminet in Northern France, provided a forum for workers’ friendly associations, who gathered to play and sing. The songs of the associations were often printed on loose-leaf paper or feuilles volantes and sold at charity events or on similar occasions promoting workers’ rights. A particularly prominent and culturally relevant event, which allowed workers to express themselves freely, was the carnival period. The most successful songs were sometimes published in a volume or an almanac. Flemish migrants participated freely in this form of popular entertainment.28 In what follows, we will take a closer look at four songs in which literary or textual multilingualism are evident. Firstly, literary bilingualism: by and large, patriotic and socialist songs were composed in French, while carnival songs were almost without exception rendered in Picard. The functional variation of the languages depended on the public the songs had to reach and the message they served to diffuse. While the more airy Picard songs were meant to be sung during the carnival periods or gatherings (comic register), the French songs were produced to spread socialist ideology (serious or satiric register as part of militantism).29 The following stanzas were written by Victor Capart (1839-1908), a popular singer, textile worker, and militant Socialist born of Belgian parents in Tourcoing. The first is drawn from a Socialist song, entitled “L’actualité ouvrière”, attacking the factory owners for their share in the workers’ misery. The second stanza, by contrast, belongs to the carnival song “Les vrais t’amuse bin” celebrating life:

28

Saartje Vanden Borre, “Union et fraternité: verenigingen van Belgische migranten in Roubaix in de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw”, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, XXXIX/3-4 (2009), 369-404. 29 We perceive the same diglossic configuration within the puppet theatres: while the historic, heroic, and patriotic dramas were played in French, the comic pieces were played in the Picard dialect, sometimes interspersed with Flemish elements (Elien Declercq, “Louis Richard, marionnettiste belge de Roubaix [1850-1915]: une identité discursive de l’entre-deux”, De Franse Nederlanden/Les Pays Bas Français, XXXV [September 2010], 171-187).

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Messieurs de la haute finance, Veuillez m’écouter un instant, Dans notre beau pays de France Que voyons-nous en ce moment, Partout, s’étaler la misère.30 Amis comm’ nous vivons D’sus terre in attindons Jamais non in n’refuse Du momint qu’in s’amuse De printe d’l’agrémint Tchan qui arrive l’momint Car la vie cha m’degoute Ellle [sic] est toudis trop courte.31

When it entered this diglossic configuration, Flemish largely remained consigned to the private sphere and the Flemish repertoire that circulated among the migrants was hardly ever written down. The only way in which the migrant language could transcend the oral sphere of the migrant’s houses, cafés, and quarters was by mixing into the Picard and French communication framework. In such cases, this resulted in hybrid songs in which the intercultural contact was textualized. Secondly, textual bilingualism: apart from the monolingual songs, we found dozens of hybrid songs written in a (Franco-) PicardFlemish language code. In this context, French, Picard, and Flemish blended to form a fictitious language which characterizes the speech of Flemish people. Jules Watteeuw (1849-1947), a Flemish-Belgian wool sorter born in Tourcoing, started out composing songs in the local Picard dialect Tourquennois. He later tried out other genres, such as pasquilles, or satiric songs in prose, fables, theatre pieces and he even edited his own journal. Unlike most of his fellow workers, Watteeuw succeeded 30

Victor Capart, L’actualité ouvrière, Lille: Imprimerie G. Delory, 1895: “Gentlemen of the high finance / Just listen to me / In France, our beautiful country / What do we see at present / Misery, everywhere” (our translation). 31 Victor Capart, Les vrais t’amuse bin, Tourcoing: Imprimerie Victor Capart, 1904: “Friends while we are living / and waiting on this earth / we should not refuse / when we have a good time / to have fun / when the moment arrives / because I find life disgusting / It is always too short” (our translation).

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in making a living out of his literary activities. In what follows, we present some stanzas from two of Watteeuw’s songs, “Pitche” and “Petite Zezèphe”, respectively (we have underscored the Flemish loanwords): Ze dis: – Te volez des sardines?... Defromace avec de tartines?... Allons, veyons, dis, bottferdeck, Té vous te volez un bisteck?... Lui dir’ que non avec son tête. Ah! mais, accout’, mo ne pas bête, Mo aller çercerde p’tit blanc Mett’ dans son main, et à lui dire: Accout’, Menherr’, te vas écrire Cinsque te volez sur de banc.32 Ze suis tit’ Zezèphe de Menin, Y bien portant, pas de çangrin. Et z’lazamais été melate. Y zamais rien desur ma corps Ni dedans, ni a dehors.33

The narrators in the two songs, Pitche and Zezèphe (calques of the Flemish given names Pietje and Jozef), are two of the many characters belonging to Watteeuw’s repertoire (Poutche, Siska, Zonasse, Liopold, etc.). The latter, Zezèphe, presents himself explicitly as a Fleming: “I am little Joseph from Menen” (Menen is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders near the FrenchBelgian border). But even if a character speaking that curious mixed language does not identify himself as such, as in the case of Pitche, 32

Jules Watteeuw, Le Broutteux: Oeuvres completes, Tourcoing: Édition de la jeunesse régionaliste, 1923, 163: “I say: Do you want some sardines?... / Bread with cheese?... / Come on, I say, damn, / Do you want a steak?... / No, he says, while shaking his head. // Ah! but, listen, I am not stupid, / I will look for a piece of paper / and put it on his hand and tell him: / Listen, Mister, you will write / what you want on your plate” (our translation). 33 Ibid., 81: “I am little Joseph from Menen / and still without grief. / And I have never been ill / and I have never had complaints / neither in my body, nor on it” (our translation).

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the stereotypic language automatically reveals the narrator’s migrant identity to the audience. Watteeuw made use of instances of codemixing applied to single lexical items (Menherr, “Mister”) as well as calques (Bottferdeck, “damn it”). Further, there are prosodic and phonetic patterns, such as the substitution of “z” for “j” and “ç” for “ch” (thus je becomes ze, zamais replaces jamais, çercer is used instead of chercher, fromaçe instead of fromage and çagrin instead of chagrin). As to the morphology of the lyrics, the verbs are not conjugated at all (Mo aller instead of Moi, je vais) or they are conjugated in an incorrect way (volez instead of voulez). Codemixing at the morpho-syntactic level is evident in the constant use of the Flemish article “de” (“the”) and repeated gender confusion (ma corps instead of mon corps). Finally, the style is characterized by changes in word order. In brief, the French-Picard basic language is, so to speak, “flemishfied” through poor grammar and style. Watteeuw’s songs are a clear example of textual bi- or trilingualism: no effort is made to keep the codes separate. Indeed, the success of the songs depends on the creation of a hybrid language at the interstices of French, Picard, and Flemish, which textualizes the diglossic situation of the host community as well as the multilingual reality of the migrant community. Importantly, however, the songs do not present a realistic reflection of the sociolinguistic situation of the industrial cities in Northern France, but make up a new fictional code, which serves to cross the boundaries between dominated and dominant languages and overcome the social tensions which load diglossia. Codeswitching is thus not merely an individual matter but is also market-driven: it functions as a means to promote acceptance of the presence of Flemish migrants in Northern France. This also appears from the fact that the songs were relatively popular among French (Tourquennois) and Flemish listeners alike. The use of recurrent and easily recognizable Flemish words such as curses made the song equally accessible to Flemish insiders and French outsiders. The hybrid language code has not only been attested in the songs of Watteeuw, but also in other songs, puppet theatre, local newspapers, almanacs, etc. The authors were not only Flemish migrants but also French, inspired by the huge presence of Flemish migrants. If the latter initially imitated in their songs Flemish migrants

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by using funny language to mock and even to stigmatize them, at the end of the nineteenth century the character of the Flemish migrant speaking this hybrid language became fashionable. This shows that textual bilingualism in many cases can be regarded as a fictional code that does not necessarily correspond to the author’s linguistic background. Conclusion In this article, we have tried to illustrate the range and complexity of responses to migration in literature and literary language use. In this respect, we have argued that Joshua Fishman’s well-known typology of speech communities is in need of elaboration when it comes to capturing the peculiar dynamic of multicultural literature, and migrant literature in particular. On a macro-sociological level, migrant languages may count as typical instances of non-diglossic bilingualism, but within the domain of popular culture, many more choices are available to the migrant author than either linguistic assimilation or pidginization. Our main point is that migrant authors do not just reproduce the empirical linguistic reality in which their speech community is involved, but rather dramatize the interplay of languages for their own benefit (comic relief, group assertion, political activism, etc.). Although the overall conclusion seems to hold true that in migrant speech communities a lack of functional separation between varieties eventually results in the dominant code taking over, we have pointed out that migrant authors develop very specific representational strategies in response to such situational contexts, which at once appear to acknowledge and counteract their cultural and linguistic integration into the host society. As the case of Flemish migrant songwriters in France illustrates, these representational strategies are submitted to different, even opposed logics: literary bilingualism is common when the author wishes to adapt a song to the genre-specific expectations of the audience by inscribing it either in the local Picard or in the French repertoire (indicating code dissociation, diglossic configuration, and the relative purity of languages). By contrast, textual bilingualism permits the songwriter to mark the migrant community’s intercultural identity by mixing up the source languages with Flemish words and phrases (that is, code conflation, non-diglossic configuration, language

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mixture). As we have tried to illustrate, literary and textual bilingualism cannot readily be conflated with either of the two supposedly necessary options available to migrant speech communities as Fishman’s model suggests. Rather than implying an uncritical adoption of the dominant language of education and industry, literary bilingualism (and by extension tri- or even quadrilingualism) reveals the migrant author’s versatility in negotiating between codes and audiences. Likewise, textual bilingualism cannot be reduced to a mere mimetic rendering of workers’ pidgin, but rather presents a careful staging of the various roles available to the Flemish migrant community in Northern France, thus reinforcing as well as revising the expectations attached to these roles. As Eric Hobsbawm has asserted, “nothing is less common than countries inhabited exclusively by people of a single uniform language and culture”.34 Since the era of nationalisms, however, literary institutions of European nations have associated “literary production” with “geopolitical and national borders”. Authenticity (desired rather than actual) has played a crucial role in the canonization of “national literatures”. Repertoires, such as the multilingual songs analysed in this article, have often passed unnoticed and have been relegated to the periphery of the literary system. In our globalized world, characterized by increasing cultural diversity and societal complexity, multicultural literature appears to receive more attention than was the case during the era of nationalisms. In some European countries, multicultural literature seems to be moving “from a position at the margin of literature to an acknowledged and even canonical status”.35 Yet, processes of globalization should also bring us to reread and reconsider multicultural literatures of the past. And, conversely, the historical study of these literatures can give us insights for present-day migration literatures. As to the language parameter, migrant writers have always been struggling with source and target languages and looking for mechanisms to acquire legitimacy. We hope that the 34

Eric Hobsbawm, “Language, Culture, and National Identity”, Social Research, LXIV/1 (Spring 1996), 1068. 35 Mirjam Gebauer and Pia Schwarz Lausten, Migration and Literature in Contemporary Europe, Munich: Martin Meidenbauer, 2010, 2.

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model we have elaborated can lead to a better understanding of multilingual dynamics in multicultural literatures of the past and the present.

II DISCOURSES ON MULTICULTURALISM, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN SWEDEN, DENMARK, THE NETHERLANDS, AND FLANDERS

LITERATURE IN MULTICULTURAL AND MULTILINGUAL SWEDEN: THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE IMMIGRANT WRITER MAGNUS NILSSON

The phenomena of immigrant literature and immigrant writer came into existence in the Swedish literary environment during the last decades of the twentieth century, when literature written by authors of non-Nordic origin was more and more often viewed as an expression of ethnic experiences and identities.1 For a couple of years early in the new millennium, this kind of literature attracted massive attention from both readers and critics. At the same time, an intense critique of the construction of immigrant literature as a literature expressing ethnic otherness was formulated by literary critics and academics, as well as by several leading immigrant writers – a critique foregrounding, above all, the exoticizing, othering, and racializing tendencies of this construction. Thereafter, the interest in the literary sphere for immigrant literature seems to have rapidly diminished. In this article, I analyse the birth and death of the Swedish immigrant writer.2 My analysis is based on a discussion of the critical reception of immigrant literature in the Swedish literary sphere over recent decades, and of the relationship between this reception and the 1

In the following, the terms “immigrant literature” and “immigrant writer” are used as direct translations of the Swedish terms “invandrarlitteratur” and “invandrarförfattare.” 2 In this article, the phenomena immigrant literature and immigrant writer are defined as historic and discursively constructed phenomena, according to our reflections in the introductory article to this volume. With immigrant writers, I mean writers, writing in Swedish, labelled immigrant writers in the literary sphere, regardless of whether or not they have actually immigrated to Sweden. For an analysis of Swedish immigrant literature written in other languages than Swedish, see Litteraturens gränsland: Invandrar- och minoritetslitteratur i nordiskt perspektiv, ed. Satu Gröndahl, Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, 2002.

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emergence of a national self-image, in which Sweden is viewed as a multicultural or multilingual society. My focus will be on the huge attention given to a new generation of immigrant writers during the first years of the twenty-first century – exemplified by Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s breakthrough in 2003 with the novel Ett öga rött (One Eye Red) – and the subsequent criticism of the discursive construction of immigrant literature during the following years. I illustrate this criticism by presenting the reception of Khemiri’s second novel, Montecore, as well as Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s two novels Kalla det vad fan du vill (Call It What The Heck You Like), and Kan du säga schibbolet? (Can You Say Shibboleth?). My main argument is that the criticism of the dominant discursive construction of the phenomenon immigrant literature has been successful, and that it has resulted in the death of the immigrant writer as a critical concept in the Swedish literary sphere. The emergence of multilingual and multicultural Sweden The phenomena immigrant literature and immigrant writer emerged in the literary sphere in Sweden during the second half of the twentieth century, a period characterized by increased immigration. During and after World War II, Sweden granted asylum to a relatively large number of refugees from the other Scandinavian countries, as well as from the Baltic States and Germany. In the following decades, several hundred thousand labour migrants came to Sweden, primarily from Finland and southern Europe, and when this kind of immigration decreased in the 1970s, refugee immigration, above all from Latin America and the Middle East, increased instead. These demographic changes were accompanied by an increased focus in the public sphere on linguistic and cultural diversity and by the gradual coming into existence of a new national self-image, in which Sweden was viewed as a multicultural or multilingual nation. This ideological process can be illustrated with the development of Swedish immigrant politics. In the 1960s, politicians debated whether assimilation or cultural pluralism should be the goal of immigration politics. The outcome of these debates was the codification in 1974 in the Swedish constitution of “the possibility for ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities to preserve and further develop their own cultures

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and communities” as a national political aim.3 Thus, the political development in Sweden is typical of the “general drift” described by Boyden and Declercq in this volume, namely that “the national culture” will eventually sanction the vernacular of minorities “as a means to safeguard equality of all citizens in the public sphere”. The efforts to achieve the goals of the constitution often focus on questions of linguistic diversity. In the 1970s, for example, immigrant schoolchildren were granted the right to home-language education. Since the year 2000, five minority languages – Finnish, Meänkieli (Tornedalian Finnish), Romani, Yiddish, and Sami – enjoy the status of official minority languages, giving speakers of these languages certain linguistic rights. Therefore, Satu Gröndahl has proposed that “multilingual society” appears to be “a more informative, and analytically more promising concept, than multicultural society” for describing contemporary Sweden.4 In public discourse, however, questions about linguistic diversity are often closely connected to questions about cultural and ethnic diversity, as evidenced by the formulation in the constitution quoted earlier of the aim for the national immigration politics. The ideological development leading to the emergence of a national self-image, in which Sweden is viewed as a multicultural or multilingual society, culminated around the year 2000. This development is closely linked to the birth of the Swedish immigrant writer, since it is this view of Sweden as a culturally and linguistically diverse nation that has produced the distinction between Swedish and immigrant culture, underpinning the distinction between Swedish and immigrant writers. Swedish immigrant literature 1970-2010 Whether or not immigrant literature was considered an important phenomenon in the literary sphere in Sweden before 2000 is unclear (and the task of clarifying it is well beyond the scope of this article). 3

Ingvar Svanberg and Mattias Tydén, Tusen år av invandring: En svensk kulturhistoria, Stockholm: Arena, 1992, 365: “etniska, språkliga och religiösa minoriteters möjlighet att behålla och utveckla ett eget kultur- och samfundsliv”. 4 Satu Gröndahl, “Inledning. Från ‘mångkulturell’ till ‘mångspråkig’ litteratur?”, in Litteraturens gränsland: Invandrar- och minoritetslitteratur i nordiskt perspektiv, ed. Satu Gröndahl, Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, 2002, 12 (emphasis in the original).

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In the only comprehensive academic study of Swedish immigrant literature from the last decades of the twentieth century – Lars Wendelius’ Den dubbla identiteten: Immigrant- och minoritetslitteratur på svenska 1970-2000 (The Double Identity: Immigrant and Minority Literature in Sweden 1979-2000) – this question is addressed only indirectly. The main reason for this is that Wendelius views immigrant literature not as a historic and discursively constructed phenomenon but, rather, as an objectively existing body of texts. This is evidenced by his definition of immigrant literature as literary texts written by non-Swedish writers and focusing on questions about immigration,5 as well as by his insistence that the term “immigrant” literature can “be defended on scientific grounds”, since it describes a “literary reality”.6 Because of this definition, it is not at all certain that the texts studied by Wendelius were actually constructed as immigrant literature in the literary field. Nevertheless, when read in the light of later research, where immigrant literature is viewed as a discursively constructed phenomenon, Wendelius’ study shows that the construction of this kind of literature seems to have been relatively stable over time. According to Wendelius,7 in the period from 1970-2000, immigrant writers were often viewed as reporters from a reality unknown to ethnic Swedes. Further, he shows that critics frequently strove to anchor these writers in their “original cultural milieu” by comparing them with other writers of similar national, regional, or ethnic background, or by reading their works in the context of the historical, political, and social conditions in “the country of origin”. Wendelius also notes a tendency among critics to focus on the cultural and geographical distance to the immigrant writers, thereby emphasizing their exoticism in relation to a Swedish norm. Thus, Wendelius concludes, “an ethnic factor” was often present in the reception of immigrant literature in the Swedish literary sphere during this period.8 Additionally, as pointed out by Gröndahl, this has also been the case 5 Lars Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten: Immigrant- och minoritetslitteratur på svenska 1970-2000, Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, 2002, 11. 6 Ibid., 47. 7 Ibid., 41. 8 See also Peter Leonard’s contribution, “Bi- and Multilingual Aspects in the Literary Writing of Translingual Authors in Sweden”, in this volume.

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in recent years. It was, she writes, “[c]haracteristic for many literary reviews” of works by immigrant writers from the turn of the millennium “that they focused on the ‘ethnic’ background of the authors in question”.9 In Wendelius’ account, the question of multilingualism does not seem to play any important role in the discussions about immigrant literature in Sweden during the last decades of the twentieth century. To some extent, this may be a result of the fact that Wendelius has chosen not to focus on stylistic questions related to “the authors’ mother tongues”.10 Nevertheless, Wendelius does make a few interesting remarks about the relationship between multilingualism and immigrant literature. One such remark is that many immigrant writers have been employed as home-language teachers, and that the institution of home-language teaching thus seems to have played an important role for the careers of several of these writers by providing “an economic base for literary activities”.11 But above all, Wendelius emphasizes – as does Leonard in his article in this volume – that questions about linguistic diversity are an important theme in immigrant writers’ representations of “the problematic of double identity”.12 As already pointed out, Wendelius’ research does not say much about the status and importance of immigrant literature in the Swedish literary sphere during the last three decades of the twentieth century. The only conclusion that can be drawn from his survey seems to be that immigrant literature was as a rather peripheral phenomenon compared to what it became during the first years of the twenty-first century. One indication of this is Wendelius’ argument that as late as 2000, it was possible for a single writer, namely Theodor Kallifatides, to “embody” the concept of the immigrant writer in the literary sphere in Sweden.13 9

Satu Gröndahl, “Multicultural or Multilingual Literature: A Swedish Dilemma?”, in Literature for Europe?, eds Theo D’haen and Iannis Goerlandt, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009, 182. 10 Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten, 13. For an analysis of such questions, see Leonard’s contribution to this volume. 11 Ibid., 21. 12 Ibid., 125. 13 Ibid., 67. Wendelius’ main support for this argument is an analysis of handbooks about Swedish literary history (64-68).

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Wendelius also notes that several important critics managed to read Kallifatides’ novels without relating them to questions about migration and ethnicity, that is, without treating them as immigrant literature.14 As an explanation for this, he points out that in the 1990s Kallifatides was no longer considered an especially exotic writer. As Wendelius puts it: “Other immigrant writers, of more distant origin, and with more dramatic experiences, had taken over that role.”15 It is hard to know exactly who Wendelius has in mind here, but read from my historical vantage point, it is not at all difficult to identify the authors who took over Kallifatides’ role of personifying the immigrant writer in the literary sphere in Sweden. For, during the first years of the twenty-first century, a new generation of Swedish immigrant writers emerged, a generation which was to play a much more important role in Swedish literature than their predecessors. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the distinction between Swedes and immigrants – primarily conceptualized in ethnic terms – became a dominant theme in public discourse,16 and eventually it was given the status of a “master code or interpretive key”17 for understanding contemporary Swedish society.18 This resulted in what one commentator described as an “ethnic turn in Swedish literature”,19 which is best exemplified with the commercial and critical success during the first years of the new millennium for a new generation of immigrant writers, a generation whose best known representatives are Alejandro Leiva Wenger, Johannes Anyuru, and Jonas Hassen Khemiri. 14

Ibid., 47. Ibid., 48. 16 See Wolfgang Behschnitt and Thomas Mohnike, “Interkulturelle Authentizität? Überlegungen zur ‘anderen’ Ästhetik der schwedischen ‘invandrarlitteratur’”, in Über Grenzen: Grenzgänge der Skandinavistik, eds Wolfgang Behschnitt and Elisabeth Herrmann, Würzburg: Ergon, 2007, 83. See also Magnus Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen: Klass och etnicitet i svensk samtidsprosa, Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2010, 9-10. 17 Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981, 61. 18 Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 18-24; Magnus Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’ and the Construction of Ethnicity”, Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek, XXXI:1 (2010), 199. 19 Peter Leonard, “Det Etniske Gennembrud – Multicultural Literature in Denmark”, in Multiethnica, XXII (Nr. 31, October 2008), 33. 15

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The interest in this literature – from critics and readers alike – has above all been conditioned by the belief that it can function as a source of information about the new multicultural Sweden,20 or as an expression of ethnic identity politics.21 Thus, although the second generation of immigrant writers has received much more attention than its predecessors, this quantitative difference does not correspond to any substantial qualitative change regarding the nature of this attention. For, as Wendelius has shown, already in the period from 1970-2000, the immigrant writer attracted interest from critics because “he or she comes from a certain environment, thematizes this environment in his or her text, and – more or less explicitly – reflects on the meaning of his or her origin”.22 This view of immigrant literature is an expression of the dominant discursive construction of this literature in the literary sphere in Sweden during the first years of the twenty-first century. The most significant aspect of this construction – which in recent years has been subjected to thorough analysis by academic critics23 – is that immigrant literature is viewed as an authentic representation of the author’s ethnic background and identity.24 Moreover, the most important guarantee of this authenticity is the para-textual proof – such as a non-Swedish name, or a non-Nordic physical appearance – of the writer’s non-Swedish background. But ethnic authenticity can also be guaranteed thematically, through a focus on themes related to

20

Behschnitt and Mohnike, “Interkulturelle Authentizität?”, 83; Thomas Mohnike, “Doppelte Fremdheit”, in Der Norden im Ausland – das Ausland im Norden, ed. Sven Hakon Rossel, Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2006, 150. 21 Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 26. 22 Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten, 41. 23 Wolfgang Behschnitt and Thomas Mohnike, “Bildung und Alteritätskonstruktion in der jüngsten schwedischen Migrantenliteratur”, in Bildung und anderes: Alterität in Bildungsdiskursen in den skandinavischen Literaturen, eds Christiane Barz and Wolfgang Behschnitt, Würzburg: Ergon, 2006, 201-29; Behschnitt and Mohnike, “Interkulturelle Authentizität?”; Thomas Mohnike, “Der ethnographische Blick: Über Literatur und Kultur als diskursive Kategorien am Beispiel schwedischer Einwandererliteratur der Gegenwart”, in Transitraum Deutsch: Literatur und Kultur im transnationalen Zeitalter, eds Jens Adam, Hans-Joachim Hahn, Lucjan Puchalski, and Irena ĝwiatáowska,Wrocáaw: ATUT-Verlag, 2007, 237-53; Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen; Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”. 24 Behschnitt and Mohnike,“Interkulturelle Authentizität?”, 80-81.

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migration and ethnicity, or stylistically, by the use of a literary style that can be associated with broken Swedish.25 Ett öga rött – an archetypical immigrant novel A telling illustration of the dominant construction of immigrant literature in Sweden during the first years of the twenty-first century can be found in the critical reception of Khemiri’s debut novel Ett öga rött, which was published in 2003. The novel was instantly a tremendous hit with readers and critics alike, and in 2007, it was turned into a feature film. By then, Khemiri was established as one of the central figures in the second generation of immigrant writers, and his novel occupied a central position in the Swedish discourse about literature and cultural diversity.26 Ett öga rött is written in the form of a diary kept by the teenager Halim, who tries to come to terms with his identity as an immigrant, a Muslim, and an Arab. Given the fact that the novel meets the standard criteria defining an immigrant novel – its author has a foreignsounding name, as well as immigrant background (a father from Tunisia), the novel thematizes questions about ethnic identity, etc. – it is not surprising that it was received as an archetypal example of this kind of literature.27 The main reason for this categorization of Ett öga rött was, however, that large parts of the novel are written in a style which resembles multi-ethnic slang. In the terminology proposed by Boyden and Declercq, Khemiri’s text is thus characterized by “textual bilingualism” or “heterolingualism”. When it first came out, Ett öga rött was often read as an autobiographical novel, its purpose to express, and demand recognition of, the author’s ethnic identity,28 and hailed by several critics as a long-awaited authentic report from the new multicultural Sweden.29 But the most resounding theme in the reception of Ett öga

25

Mohnike, “Der ethnographische Blick”, 242-43. Ibid., 244. 27 Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 205-206. 28 Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 37-39. 29 Wolfgang Behschnitt, “The Voice of the ‘Real Migrant’: Contemporary Migration Literature in Sweden”, in Migration and Literature in Contemporary Europe, eds Mirjam Gebauer and Pia Schwarz Lausten, Munich: Meidenbauer, 2010, 78. 26

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rött was that Khemiri’s literary style represented realistically a multiethnic youth language.30 Khemiri protested against this interpretation of Ett öga rött as an immigrant novel written in multi-ethnic slang, and against the pigeonholing of himself as an immigrant writer. Similar protests had been voiced earlier by other immigrant writers like Kallifatides,31 and later, other second-generation immigrant writers like Marjaneh Bakhtiari would raise similar objections.32 This critique can be understood as an ideologically motivated protest against the othering, exoticizing, and racializing aspects of the discursive construction of immigrant literature in the Swedish literary sphere. For, as Gröndahl has pointed out, the literary production of Khemiri, Bakhtiari, and other second-generation immigrant writers “was predominantly categorized as ‘Other’ by situating it at the intersections of race/ethnicity and class, and by recognizing it as making us[e] of ethnically-inclined variations upon the majority language”.33 The critique can, however, also be interpreted in the context of the logic of the literary field.34 At least since the 1970s, the position of the immigrant writer has been available to Swedish writers with nonSwedish ethnic backgrounds. The emergence of this position is the result of the fact that the cultural capital of non-Swedish ethnicity has been legitimized as symbolic capital in the Swedish literary field.35 Even if investments in this kind of capital may give access to certain positions within the field, they may, however, also be counterproductive for writers aspiring to dominating positions. The main reason for this is that the cultural capital of non-Swedish ethnicity derives from extra-literary conditions, and thus conflicts with the field-specific literary capital on which claims for dominance in the literary field are based.36 Therefore, protests against the pigeonholing of authors with foreign backgrounds as immigrant writers may well be 30 Roger Källström, “‘Flygande blattesvenska’ – recensenter om språket i Ett öga rött”, in Svenskans beskrivning, XXVIII (2006), 147. 31 Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten, 47. 32 Gröndahl, “Multicultural or Multilingual Literature”, 182. 33 Ibid., 182-83. 34 Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 43-53. 35 Ibid., 45-46. 36 Ibid., 50-51.

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an expression of conflicts within the literary field, rather than an expression of theoretically grounded and politically motivated beliefs. Khemiri articulated his critique of the dominant construction of the phenomena immigrant literature and immigrant writer in several interviews in newspapers and magazines before and after the publication of Ett öga rött. One typical example is a 2003 interview in the daily newspaper Aftonbladet where the journalist Olle Castelius describes Khemiri and his novel in a way that would soon become paradigmatic, by characterizing Ett öga rött as the first Swedish novel “written entirely in broken Swedish”,37 and by arguing that the novel’s protagonist bears a striking resemblance to its author. Despite this description of Khemiri and his novel, it is also made clear in the article that Khemiri tries to counter Castelius’ characterization by arguing that the book should be allowed to speak for itself, and by stating that his biography has got nothing to do with the characters and the world he describes.38 Khemiri also criticizes the discursive construction of the phenomenon immigrant literature in his novel. As will be shown later, many critics did not notice this when the novel first appeared. But in academic research, Khemiri’s critique of the discursive category of immigrant literature has been identified as a major theme in Ett öga rött.39 Khemiri’s critique of the concept of immigrant literature in Ett öga rött is satirical and closely linked to the novel’s central theme, namely the protagonist’s struggle to come to terms with his identity.40 Halim strives to be true to who he really is, and thus to achieve an authentic identity as an immigrant, a Muslim, and an Arab. Since he uses his diary as a way of establishing such an identity, he has to confront questions about how ethnic authenticity can be expressed textually. These questions are explicitly thematized in Ett öga rött. One example of this is when Halim argues that his story has to be “as 37 Olle Castelius, “Uttrycken talar om vilka vi är”, in Aftonbladet, 6 July 2003: “skriven helt på bruten svenska.” 38 Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 36-38. 39 Wolfgang Behschnitt, “Willkommen im Vorort”, in Literatur der Migration – Migration der Literatur, ed. Karin Hoff, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2008, 40-41.; Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 107-12; Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 208-12. 40 Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 208.

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genuine as possible”.41 Another example is when he addresses the reader directly, saying “it’s important being real, and in the same way one must think when writing”.42 Halim’s primary means for “being real … when writing” – that is, expressing ethnic authenticity textually – is to use multi-ethnic youth language in his diary. This is spelled out in an argument with his father, who has read the diary and abhors his son’s language use: “Do you want me to talk Swede-talk? At least I know who I am, and where I come from.”43 Halim’s insistence on the connection between his use of multiethnic youth language and his true identity brings to the fore the demand for ethnic authenticity underpinning the discursive construction of immigrant literature, and the idea that this authenticity can be guaranteed stylistically through the use of a literary style resembling immigrant Swedish. Yet Halim’s claims that his language use makes his text authentic are constantly destabilized.44 Most importantly, his repeated insistence that his use of broken Swedish is an authentic manifestation of who he really is, is weakened by the fact that it is made clear to the reader that Halim actually chooses to write the way he does, and that he often switches between different linguistic registers. One example of such a revelation is his father’s comment about his son’s insistence on the authenticity of the language he uses in his diary: “Don’t you think I know that your Swedish is much better than that. Only a couple of years ago you spoke fluently.”45 As Boyden and Declercq have pointed out, it is common in literature characterized by textual bilingualism that the dominant language code is reserved for the narrator’s voice and that 41

Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Ett öga rött, Stockholm: Norstedts, 2003, 13: “äktast möjliga.” The incorrect grammar in these quotes is not a result of poor proof-reading, but an example of Halim’s use of a literary style resembling multi-ethnic youth language. 42 Ibid., 80: “det är viktigt man är riktig, och på samma sätt man måste tänka när man skriver.” 43 Ibid., 215: “Vill du att jag ska snacka svennesnack? Jag vet i alla fall vem jag är och var jag kommer ifrån.” 44 Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 210-11. 45 Khemiri, Ett öga rött, 215: “Tror du inte att jag vet att du kan bättre svenska än sådär? För bara några år sen pratade du helt perfekt.”

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codeswitching and codemixing is used by characters. In Ett öga rött, however, it is the narrator – who is also the novel’s protagonist – who mixes and switches between linguistic codes. Nevertheless, the effect of this textual bilingualism is the same as the one described by Boyden and Declercq, namely that the “dominance of the authoritative code” (which in this case is Halim’s allegedly authentic language use) is “questioned from the inside out”. Critique of the construction of immigrant literature Khemiri’s critique in Ett öga rött of the construction of the phenomenon immigrant literature is informed by the international theoretical debates during the last decades about literature and migration.46 As already pointed out, the same cannot be said about the general critical reception of the novel. But soon after Khemiri’s debut, a number of critics did start to question the dominant discourse in the Swedish literary sphere about immigrant literature. One of the most influential of these critics was Astrid Trotzig. In 2004 she published an essay (a longer version of which was published in 2005), in which she formulates a far-reaching critique of the Swedish discourse about immigrant literature. Trotzig makes her point of departure her own experiences, and claims that she receives attention in the public sphere first and foremost because of her alleged non-Swedish ethnicity (she was adopted from Korea), which is perceived by critics as “exotic”.47 Trotzig argues that this is part of a more general tendency in discussions about literature and multicultural society. Ethnicity, she claims, has become a lens through which Swedish writers of foreign descent are viewed.48 Trotzig brings to the fore several problems with this lens. First of all, she argues that it does not really focus on ethnicity as such, but on certain ethnicities. She points out that not all writers who are immigrants are labelled immigrant writers and that this shows that the 46

Behschnitt, “The Voice of the ‘real Migrant’”, 79-80. This is, by the way, also true for Bakhtiari’s critique of the construction of the phenomenon of immigrant literature in her novel Kalla det vad fan du vill (Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 12728). 47 Astrid Trotzig, “Makten över prefixen”, in Orientalism på svenska, ed. Moa Matthis, Stockholm: Ordfront, 2005, 106. 48 Ibid., 126.

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ethnic lens is discriminating.49 Secondly, she claims that the lens is homogenizing in that it eradicates important differences between immigrant writers.50 This goes hand in hand with a third problem identified by Trotzig, namely that the ethnic lens establishes similarities between immigrant writers by way of creating stereotypical fictions about their biographies. Further, Trotzig argues that the discursive construction of immigrant literature is racializing, or even racist.51 Trotzig’s critique of the dominant discourse about immigrant literature was later picked up and elaborated by other critics. One of them was the philosopher Aleksander Motturi, who argues that the hegemonic thinking about difference in contemporary Sweden focuses on ethnicity, and that this leads to exoticizing and othering representations of literature written by non-Swedish authors, where the writer’s ethnicity becomes the key to understanding his or her work.52 Similar ideas have also been put forward in several academic studies of Swedish immigrant literature.53 Interestingly enough, almost all of the main themes in the critique of the discursive construction of immigrant literature as an expression of ethnic experiences or identities are articulated already in Khemiri’s debut novel.54 They also reverberate in the work of another contemporary writer with an immigrant background, namely Marjaneh Bakhtiari. Bakhtiari published her first novel, Kalla det vad fan du vill, in 2005. It soon became a critical and commercial success, and besides being translated into several foreign languages, it has also been adapted for the theatre. Like Khemiri’s Ett öga rött, Bakhtiari’s novel fits the standard description of an immigrant novel, since Bakhtiari is of Iranian origin, and the main theme of Kalla det vad fan du vill is

49

Ibid., 107-108. Ibid., 109-10. 51 Ibid., 111. 52 Aleksander Motturi, Etnotism: En essä om mångkultur, tystnad och begäret efter mening, Gothenburg: Glänta Productions, 2007, 23 and 57-58. 53 Behschnitt and Mohnike, “Interkulturelle Authentizität?”; Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen; Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”. 54 Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 104-12. 50

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ethnic and cultural diversity.55 And like Khemiri, Bakhtiari has protested against her work being viewed as immigrant literature. Her protests have been put forward in numerous interviews, but also – and above all – in her debut novel, where the discursive construction of immigrant literature is subjected to an even more farreaching critique than the one formulated in Khemiri’s novel.56 The most important argument in this critique is that literature should not be conceptualized as an expression of ethnic experiences or identities, since this runs counter to the understanding of ethnicity as a cultural construct, and thus contributes to the racialization of authors with a non-Swedish ethnicity.57 One especially interesting aspect of Bakhtiari’s critique of the dominant construction of immigrant literature is her representation of linguistic diversity. Kalla det vad fan du vill can be described as an example of textual bilingualism. In the novel, the speech of many of the immigrant characters is represented as deviating (in different ways, and to different extents) from the standard Swedish used by the narrator. But the speech of some of the Swedish characters is also marked as deviant. Bertil, an old, ethnically Swedish man, for example, speaks a much-accentuated Scanian dialect. And the novel’s protagonist, a young immigrant girl by the name of Bahar, is often described as speaking a similar dialect. Thus, Bakhtiari undermines the opposition between standard and immigrant Swedish underpinning the construction of immigrant literature, both by distinguishing between different kinds of broken Swedish spoken by immigrants from different countries, and conversely by establishing a linguistic uniformity between certain Swedish and non-Swedish characters. The death of the immigrant writer In recent years, critics such as Trotzig and Motturi, authors such as Khemiri and Bakhtiari, and some of the scholars doing research on Swedish immigrant literature, have formulated a far-reaching critique of the dominant discursive construction of the phenomenon of immigrant literature. This critique has been rather successful. 55

Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 205-206. Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen, 128-31; Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 206-208. 57 Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 212. 56

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One indication of this is that when Bakhtiari made her debut in 2005 with Kalla det vad fan du vill, critics were much more reluctant to label her an immigrant writer and her novel immigrant literature than they had been to place Khemiri and Ett öga rött in these categories only two years earlier. Further, in the critical reception of Bakhtiari’s and Khemiri’s second novels, one often finds a high degree of awareness – and sometimes even an explicit critical discussion – of the discursive construction of immigrant literature characteristic of the reception of Ett öga rött. Already before the publication of her debut novel, Bakhtiari – much like Khemiri two years earlier – tried to counter the categorization of herself as an immigrant writer. As an example of this, one can mention an interview in Sweden’s leading daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. This interview opens as follows: “At last, a girl follows all the guys who have written an immigrant novel.”58 But immediately, in the next sentence, Bakhtiari is quoted saying that she does not accept such a categorization, and that the title of her book signals that she does not want to be pigeonholed as an immigrant writer: “I thought, that if my book was called an immigrant novel, the title (Call It What The Heck You Like) would be my reply, and that in a parenthesis it should then say: But I want you to explain to me why you call it that.”59 Some critics ignored Bakhtiari’s protests, as well as the critique of the discursive construction of immigrant literature inherent in her novel. Gunilla Marklund, for example, opened her review in Borås Tidning by arguing that Bakhtiari is one of the rising multicultural stars in Swedish literature, together with such second-generation immigrant writers as Alejandro Leiva Wenger, Johannes Anyuru, and Jonas Hassen Khemiri.60 Yet many reviewers in daily newspapers did take Bakhtiari’s critique of the concept of immigrant literature seriously. One of them was Ann Lingebrandt. In her review of Kalla det vad fan du vill in 58 Lina Kalmteg, “Debut med perfekt tajmning”, in Dagens Nyheter, 9 March 2005: “Äntligen kommer det en tjej efter alla de killar som har skrivit en invandrarroman.” 59 Ibid.: “Jag tänkte att om man skulle kalla min bok för en invandrarroman skulle titeln vara min replik och inom parentes skulle det stå: Men jag vill att du förklarar för mig varför du gör det.” 60 Gunilla Marklund, “Fördomar och febrig dialog”, in Borås Tidning, 20 April 2005.

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Helsingborgs Dagblad she writes that Bakhtiari’s novel is “just what the media thirsts for: an author with a foreign-sounding name, female to boot, who gives a broad view of the so called new Sweden”.61 But Lingebrandt also notes that Bakhtiari does not want to be labelled an immigrant writer, and that her novel criticizes the ethnic othering such a labelling may cause. Another critic, Fredrik Borneskans, who reviewed Kalla det vad fan du vill in Södra Dalarnes Tidning, even self-critically notes that the novel’s title could be read as an attack on literary critics trying to describe Bakhtiari’s novel as an immigrant book by an immigrant writer.62 This distancing by literary critics from the discursive construction of immigrant literature dominating the reception of Ett öga rött two years earlier indicates that the critique of this construction formulated by Khemiri himself, and by critics such as Trotzig, had been rather successful. This success is further evidenced by the reviews of Khemiri’s next novel, Montecore, published in 2006, when literary scholars had also begun to formulate a theoretical critique of the othering and exoticizing construction of the category of immigrant literature.63 Montecore is an epistolary novel, in which a young man by the name of Jonas Khemiri exchanges e-mails with an old friend of his father, called Kadir. The correspondence is mainly about Khemiri’s

61

Ann Lingebrandt, “Hon rymmer från invandrarbåset”, in Helsingborgs Dagblad, 20 April 2005: “precis vad media törstar efter: en författare med ett utländskt klingande namn, kvinnligt dessutom, som ger en inblick i det så kallade nya Sverige.” 62 Fredrik Borneskans, “Kulturkrockar som knockar”, in Södra Dalarnes Tidning, 1 June 2005. 63 In a paper presented at the 25th meeting of the International Association for Scandinavian Studies, which was held in Vienna in August 2004, Behschnitt emphasizes that “the definition of the subject matter and the terminology” is an important problem in the scholarly literature on Scandinavian immigrant literature, and that this problem is connected to “questions about power and valuation”, since the “categorization of an author as an immigrant, and of a text as immigrant literature, defines this writer and this text as other, as deviant from the norm” (Wolfgang Behschnitt, “Das Andere der Einwandererliteratur: Überlegungen aus literaturwissenschaft-licher Perspektive”, in Der Norden im Ausland – das Ausland im Norden: Formung und Transformation von Konzepten und Bildern des Anderen vom Mittelalter bis heute, ed. Sven Hakon Rossel, Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2006, 14244).

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father, Abbas, who has left his family and disappeared. But Khemiri and Kadir also discuss the reception of the former’s debut novel. Early in the novel, Kadir reveals that Khemiri (the character) has complained about his publisher’s marketing of his debut novel as “the first novel written in genuine Rinkeby-Swedish”,64 and about the critics’ description of it as a representation of “the immigrant’s story”, written in the language spoken by immigrants.65 This reception puzzles Kadir: “Didn’t you write that your book was about a native Swede, intentionally speaking broken Swedish? What happened to your stated intention to explore ‘the theme of authenticity’?”66 In an interview in the daily newspaper Östgöta-Correspondenten in February 2006, Khemiri highlights the critique in Montecore of the reception of Ett öga rött. He is quoted as saying that his new novel is a product of his frustration at some people’s claiming the right to define the lives of others.67 This should be read as a commentary on the dominant discursive construction of the immigrant writer, for the fact that the core value in the discursive construction of immigrant literature is that it gives an authentic representation of the author’s ethnicity produces a reception of this kind of literature that can be understood in terms of an “ethnographischer Blick” (“ethnographic gaze”).68 The result of this “Blick” is that every aspect of the author’s life other than his or her ethnic belonging is made invisible.69 The critical reception of Montecore in Swedish newspapers was radically different from the reception of Ett öga rött. Above all, the 64

Khemiri, Montecore. En unik tiger, Stockholm: Norstedts, 2006, 28: “den första romanen skriven på tvättäkta Rinkebysvenska.” “Rinkebysvenska” (“RinkebySwedish”) is a term signifying multicultural youth-language, referring to the multicultural Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby. 65 Ibid., 39: “invandrarens historia.” 66 Ibid.: “Skrev du inte att din bok handlade om en svenskfödd man som bryter sitt språk med intention? Vad hände med din påstådda exploration av ‘autenticitetstemat’?” Kadir’s comment is not in standard Swedish, since his e-mails to Khemiri are written in a style based on various kinds of combinations of Swedish and French. This style should probably be interpreted as a commentary to the idea about broken Swedish signalling ethnic authenticity characteristic of the critical reception of Ett öga rött. 67 Karin Arbsjö, “En gäckande berättare”, in Östgöta-Correspondenten, 25 February 2006. 68 Mohnike, “Der ethnographische Blick”. 69 Nilsson, “Swedish ‘Immigrant Literature’”, 203.

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majority of the critics did not read Montecore as an immigrant novel. In addition to this, many critics explicitly discussed Khemiri’s critique of the discursive construction of the phenomenon immigrant literature, and several of them even seemed to agree with it. To take just a few examples: in his review of Montecore in Hallands Nyheter, Jonatan Leman reminds the reader that Ett öga rött was praised for its “authentic immigrant voice from the heart of the suburb”, despite the fact that Khemiri never claimed an immigrant identity.70 In Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Daniel Sandström points out that Khemiri’s first novel was read as “an ‘authentic story from the suburb,’ when, in reality, it was a story about authenticity”.71 Sabrina Ögren characterizes Montecore, in her review in Nya Ludvika Tidning, as “a rejoinder to all those who viewed his fictitious imitated suburban Swedish as ‘genuine Rinkeby-Swedish’”, and who labelled Khemiri a “mouthpiece” for immigrants.72 Stefan Eklund, who reviewed Montecore in Borås Tidning, highlights the fact that Khemiri’s new novel contains an attack on those critics who misread Ett öga rött as an immigrant novel.73 In Helsingsborgs Dagblad Marie Pettersson points out that Khemiri was marketed as an immigrant writer writing in broken Swedish, and that most critics read Ett öga rött as an immigrant novel, but that Khemiri has protested against such readings, and that Trotzig has formulated a general critique of the dominant discursive construction of immigrant literature.74 Only a few reviewers read Montecore the way by which Ett öga rött was read, that is, as an immigrant novel. In Expressen, Nils Schwartz argued that the fact that Khemiri has a Tunisian father has 70

Jonatan Leman, “Stilsäker, egensinnig och angelägen”, in Hallands Nyheter, 6 February 2006: “autentiska invandrarröst från förortens hjärta.” The word “förorten” – here translated as “suburb” – means something between suburb and ghetto, without the sleepy associations of the former, but without the single-ethnicity associations of the latter. The US-American word “hood” comes close to conveying this meaning. 71 Daniel Sandström, “Tjenare på dig själv, Jonas!”, in Sydsvenskan, 6 February 2006: “en ‘autentisk berättelse från förorten’ när den egentligen var en berättelse om autenticitet.” 72 Sabina Ögren, “Beviset för ett författarskap”, in Nya Ludvika Tidning, 6 February 2006: “en replik till alla som ville se hans fiktion imiterade [sic] förortssvenska som ‘äkta Rinkebysvenska’”, “språkrör”. 73 Stefan Eklund, “En läsfest av bästa slag”, in Borås Tidning, 6 February 2006. 74 Marie Pettersson, “Khemiri gör sin grej”, in Helsingborgs Dagblad, 6 February 2006.

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resulted in a kind of semi-alienation from Swedish society, which he has managed to turn into “an extraordinary literary asset”.75 In Nerikes Allehanda, Maija Niittymäki comments upon the heterogeneous style in Montecore by reminding the reader that “hybrid identities” may generate “hybrid languages”. She also likens Khemiri with writers such as Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, and Hari Kunzru, who are said to write “with the point of departure in a complex national, linguistic, and social experience and identity” and, thus, to give “voice to the new trans-cultural diversity”.76 The critical reception in Swedish newspapers of Bakhtiari’s second novel, Kan du säga Schibbolet?, published in 2008, shows that the discursive construction of immigrant literature which was dominant in the literary sphere only a few years earlier has now more or less collapsed. This is evidenced above all by the fact that very few critics read Kan du säga Schibbolet? as an immigrant novel. Indeed, in Borås Tidning Stefan Eklund explicitly declares that this category can no longer be used in the Swedish literary sphere. Eklund argues that second-generation immigrants who become writers are often viewed as a homogeneous group on the basis of their non-Swedish ethnicity, and thus reduced to “immigrant voices”, a view which, according to Eklund, is an expression of benevolent racism.77 A final illustration of the death of the immigrant writer in the Swedish literary sphere can be found in the reception of my book Den föreställda mångkulturen: Klass och etnicitet i svensk samtidsprosa (Imagined Cultural Diversity: Class and Ethnicity in Contemporary Swedish Prose Fiction), which was published in 2010. In this book, I analyse and criticize the discursive construction of immigrant literature in the literary sphere in Sweden in recent years along the lines of the critique put forward by Trotzig, Khemiri, Bakhtiari, and others. Most of the critics reviewing my book seem to agree with this critique, and some of them even try to formulate a self-critical 75 Nils Schwartz, “Ett öga blått”, in Expressen, 6 February 2006: “en extraordinär litterär tillgång.” 76 Maija Niittymäki, “Litteratur Jonas Hassen”, in Nerikes Allehanda, 6 February 2006: “Hybrida identiteter”, “hybrida språk”, “utifrån en komplex nationell, språklig och social erfarenhet och identitet”, “röst för [sic] den nya transkulturella mångfalden”. 77 Stefan Eklund, “De ihjälkramade”, in Borås Tidning, 2 November 2008: “invandrarröster.”

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assessment of the critical reception of immigrant literature in recent years. In Svenska Dagbladet Erik Löfvendahl reviews Den föreställda mångkulturen under the title “Det finns ingen invandrarlitteratur” (“There is No Immigrant Literature”).78 In the review he argues that Swedish literary critics have coined the term immigrant literature, and that this has resulted in too strong a focus on ethnicity. Since this focus is problematic, Löfvendahl argues, the term immigrant literature should be retired. In Helsingborgs Dagblad, Ann Lingebrandt puts forward a similar argument.79 She argues that the critical reception of Ett öga rött was symptomatic of many reviewers’ attitudes towards “authors with names or skin colour perceived of as foreign”, and ends her review by expressing the hope that “critical fiascos” like the reception of Khemiri’s debut novel will not be repeated in the future.80 Conclusion Immigrant literature has been constructed in more or less the same way in the literary sphere in Sweden since the 1970s, namely as literature written by authors with an immigrant background, expressing migrant experiences and ethnic identities. During the very first years of the twenty-first century, this kind of literature received unprecedented attention from both critics and readers, mainly because ethnicity, during this period, was given the status of a master code for understanding contemporary Swedish society, and because literature was viewed as a privileged source of information about the new multicultural and multilingual Sweden. The increased interest in immigrant literature, however, provoked critical reactions from both literary critics and academic scholars. Above all, the dominant discursive construction of the phenomena immigrant literature and immigrant writer was criticized for having othering, exoticizing, and racializing effects. A similar critique was also put forward by many immigrant writers, both in interviews, and in their literary works. This critique often focused on undermining the 78

Erik Löfvendahl,“Det finns ingen invandrarlitteratur”, in Svenska Dagbladet, 24 February 2010. 79 Lingebrandt, “Hon rymmer från invandrarbåset”. 80 Ibid.: “författare med namn eller hudfärg som uppfattas som främmande”, “kritikerfiaskon.”

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distinction between standard and broken Swedish, which has often been used as a symbol for the distinction between Swedish and immigrant culture, which, in turn, underpins the distinction between Swedish and immigrant literature. This critical intervention has been successful. The first novel embraced by critics and readers as an archetypal immigrant novel written in broken Swedish – Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Ett öga rött – was also the last novel to be unanimously received in this way in the literary sphere in Sweden. Already two years after Khemiri’s debut, the reception of Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s novel Kalla det vad fan du vill shows that literary critics have been influenced by the criticism of the ideological effects of the dominant discursive construction of immigrant literature put forward first by immigrant writers, and later by academics. In the reception of Khemiri’s and Bakhtiari’s second novels – Montecore and Kan du säga schibbolet?, respectively – the awareness of the problematical ideological implications of this construction are accentuated even more. Thus it seems more appropriate to view the Swedish immigrant writer as a historical object associated with late twentieth-century Swedish literary history than as an important figure in the Swedish literature of the new millennium. For even if the term “immigrant writer” has not totally disappeared from Swedish literary discourse, immigrant literature is no longer considered to be an important strand in contemporary Swedish literature. Whether or not this indicates a shift in the ideological developments that made the birth of the immigrant writer possible in the first place – that is, the emergence of a national self-image in which Sweden is viewed as a multicultural and multilingual society, characterized above all by ethnic diversity – or if the death of the immigrant writer is caused by developments specific to the relatively autonomous literary sphere, is difficult to answer. But given the fact that literature has been one of the central arenas for the discussion of cultural diversity in Sweden in recent years, and that the literary texts that have played a major part in the deconstruction of the discourse about immigrant literature have reached a huge number of readers, the possibility that the death of the immigrant writer may lead to the death of other representations of the ethnic other in Sweden as well should not be ruled out.

NEW VOICES WANTED: THE SEARCH FOR A DANISH MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE DÖRTHE GAETTENS

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, interest in Danish multicultural literature has grown – even if, paradoxically, the main feature of this literature seems to be that there is not much of it and it is difficult to find.1 A key event occurred in 2006, when Denmark’s most renowned publishing house Gyldendal and the conservative broadsheet newspaper Berlingske Tidende jointly initiated a competition for literature by writers from ethnic and cultural backgrounds other than Danish. This initiative culminated in the anthology Nye stemmer (New Voices), published in February of the following year. The project received enormous attention from literary critics and was seen by many as the beginning of a real breakthrough for immigrant writers into Danish literature.2 It is no coincidence this happened at a time when Danish national culture and identity were hotly debated: in 2006 the Danish Ministry of Culture had published a list, the Danish Culture Canon, in order to re-vitalize and safeguard national cultural heritage and identity at a time of globalization and migration.3 At the same time, the “cartoon 1

I have based this article on my Master’s thesis, submitted July 2009 at Humboldt University Berlin. All translations from Danish are mine. I am deeply indebted to John Carson for revising the text and correcting my English. 2 See, for example, where Dannemand writes how the collection was a “Gennembrud for nye stemmer i dansk litteratur” (“breakthrough for new voices in Danish literature”) (Henrik Dannemand, “Danmarks nye stemmer”, Berlingske Tidende, 20 November 2006). 3 In December 2004 the Danish Minister of Culture, Brian Mikkelsen, announced his plans for establishing a Danish Culture Canon. In April 2005 he appointed seven canon committees, corresponding to the seven art forms within the ministry: architecture, visual art, design and craft, film, literature, music, and performing art.

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crisis”, arising from depictions of the prophet Muhammed in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, not only caused international diplomatic turmoil but also brought questions of Danish identity to the forefront.4 The project New Voices can in fact be seen as a reaction to this discourse on national culture and identity on danskhed (Danishness) in that time. In the Danish debate the terms indvandrerforfattere and invandrerlitteratur, meaning “immigrant writers” and “immigrant literature”, are those most often used in public discussion when referring to Denmark’s need for a multicultural literature.5 In this essay, I explore the discursive construction of this phenomenon. Hence, the terms “immigrant literature” and “immigrant writer”, as I use them in my analysis, are not to be understood as fixed categories, but rather as analytical tools. As a consequence, I do not focus on the literary texts themselves, but on the paratexts introducing and commenting on immigrant literature, as well as on literary critics discussing the topic of immigrant writers and immigrant literature. The New Voices debate in 2006/2007 is crucial, but not the only point of reference. In fact, as we Each committee was to select twelve Danish works to be included in the Canon. The Danish Culture Canon, planned as a collection of the greatest and most important works of Denmark’s cultural heritage, was published and distributed in 2006-2007 as a book with DVD and CD-ROM free of charge to all primary and secondary schools (Folkeskolen), upper secondary schools (Gymnasium), business colleges (Handelshøjskole) and to adult learning centres and high schools (Højskoler) as well as on the internet, but it was also available for sale. The canon initiative can be seen as part of what in the Danish cultural discourse is termed Kulturkampen (“the cultural battle”) of the conservative government of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen that came into power in 2001. 4 For more information on the “cartoon crisis” and its background, see Toger Seidenfaden and Rune Engelbrecht Larsen, Karikaturkrisen: en undersøgelse af baggrund og ansvar, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2006. 5 It is noteworthy that the Greenlandic (post-)colonial literature, which among others the Danish scholar Kirsten Thisted has studied, is usually not included in the field of indvandrerlitteratur (“immigrant literature”), although in fact it belongs to the field of multicultural literature in Denmark. This is also true for the Faroese literature. Similar to the field of immigrant literature, Greenlandic and Faroese literature are very marginal subjects within the Danish literary field. For more detailed information on their Danish reception, see Tekke Terpstra’s “Færingerne og Grønlændernes litteratur i danske øjne: Den danske reception af færøsk og grønlandsk litteratur i et postkolonialt perspektiv”, MA thesis, Groningen University, 2005.

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will see, the literary competition and the anthology of the same name were not the first and only instances where an image of immigrant writers and immigrant literature was evoked.6 By taking all of these examples into account, it is possible to determine what styles, characteristics, and fashions were expected of and ascribed to the phenomena of immigrant writer and immigrant literature in Denmark, and which were the most important. They also provide clues about who the most important actors were and which proved most successful. In this manner, the analysis aims at a diachronic approach to this phenomenon and on the position of immigrant writers as well as immigrant literature in the literary field in the Bourdieuan sense.7 It will show that immigrant literature in anthology projects has always been conceptualized as a way to promote cultural diversity and intercultural understanding in Denmark. However, in spite of good intentions, such endeavours actually turned out to be acts of unintentional othering and exoticizing. Yet, it will also show that it was not until the national image of Denmark was at stake in 2006 that such efforts had a substantial impact on public discourse. The hegemonic discourse Today, according to official statistics, about 9.5 per cent of the total population in Denmark is composed of immigrants or refugees, and this share is expected to rise to about 16.6 per cent by 2050.8 The 6

Already in the 1990s, three literary competitions were organized that were addressed to writers from non-Danish backgrounds. The first was in 1991 by Samspil: A Magazine about and for Immigrants, the second in 1995 by the publishing house Brøndum in association with the Danish Refugee Council, and the third in 1999 by the former Danish socialdemocratic newspaper Aktuelt. However, they were not paid as much attention as the competition in 2006. 7 See Andreas Dörner and Ludgera Vogt, “Kultursoziologie (BourdieuMentalitätsgeschichte-Zivilisationstheorie)”, in Neue Literaturtheorien: Eine Einführung, ed. Klaus-Michael Bogdal, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2005, 147. See also Markus Joch and Norbert Christian Wolf, “Feldtheorie als Provokation der Literaturwissenschaft”, in Text und Feld: Bourdieu in literaturwissenschaftlicher Praxis, eds Markus Joch and Norbert Christian Wolf, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2005, 23. 8 See Danmarks Statistik, Indvandrere i Danmark 2009, Copenhagen, 2009, 7. It is noteworthy that in Denmark not only immigrants and refugees of the first generation are counted in that figure but also their children and their children’s children. Thus, the second and the following generations are somehow still considered immigrants and refugees, despite being born in Denmark.

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demographic change is not only clearly visible in national statistics but also in daily media in Denmark, where issues of immigrants and integration have been among the most popular for a number of years. Since the nineteenth century, Danish society has been imagined as nationally and culturally homogeneous. Immigrant literature challenges one of the core features of this cultural homogeneity, the concept of a monolingual national literary canon, and thus has become a very hot topic.9 In this respect, the specific situation of indvandrerlitteratur in Denmark is related to a number of hegemonic national discourses, that is, discourses shaped by the Danish public sphere. First of all, the discourse on immigrants in Denmark plays a decisive role, but no less important is the image and concept of Danish literature. Although immigrants apparently form the subject in a term like “immigrant literature”, their status and contribution to the literary field depend first and foremost on whether or not immigrants and immigrant literature are portrayed, and, in case they are, how they are conceptualized and judged from a Danish point of view. In this context, the media debate is of crucial interest.10 Although scholars have varying views on how the media portrayal affects public opinion, they all agree on the media effect as such. In the Danish academic debate, the 1996 study by Togeby and Gaasholt I syv sind: Danskernes holdninger til flygtninge og indvandrere (In Two Minds: Danish Attitudes Towards Refugees and Immigrants) is a main reference point, although their approach is not uncontested.11 Their study argues that media portrayals have an extraordinarily high impact on popular opinion concerning immigrant-related issues. It shows, for example, that about 80 per cent of the Danish population derives its knowledge about ethnic minorities from the mass media alone, 9

Linda Hutcheon, “Rethinking the National Model”, in Rethinking Literary History, eds Linda Hutcheon and Mario J. Valdés, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 3-49; Hans Hauge, “Postkolonialism”, in Litteraturens tilgange: Metodiske angrebsvinkler, ed. Johannes Fibinger, Copenhagen: Gads, 2001, 369-405. 10 Jacob Gaarde Madsen, Mediernes konstruktion af flygtninge- og indvandrerspørgsmålet, Aarhus: Magtudredningen, 2000, 9: “The media discourse is crucial because it affects the public discourse on the issues concerned; it both reflects it and contributes to its creation. Thus, the media is an autonomous agent in the process, in which a social problem is constructed, and simultaneously forms the arena where different agents fight for the construction of the problem in question.” 11 See Mustafa Hussain, “Magtudredningen og holdningen til ‘de fremmede’ – en kritisk kommentar”, Dansk Sociologi, XV (2004), 107-14.

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because most Danes have no direct contact with any “aliens” at all.12 These results can be combined with Gaarde Madsen’s discursive analysis, which shows that media coverage of issues related to ethnic minorities changed substantially from the 1970s to the end of the millennium. In the 1970s, the focus was on “guest workers as working power for the Danish labor market”; by the first half of the 1980s, it had shifted to “crime”, and by the second half, to “racism and xenophobia”. Since the 1990s, media portrayal of ethnic minorities has steadily expanded and sharpened, though mainly around the notion of the immigrant as a problem and formulated in terms of a dichotomous distinction between “them” and “us”. In this vein Mustafa Hussain, a Danish scholar in the field of media criticism, concludes: “It is quite evident from the empirical inquiries of the recent past that a prejudiced portrayal and stereotype of ethnic reality across the spectrum of the Danish media is by now a well-established fact.”13 His quantitative study of the construction of ethnic reality in Danish public media in 1996, when Copenhagen was the European Capital of Culture, brings us back to the article’s major topic. It not only attests to a highly biased representation of “the other” in Danish media, but also to the fact that there was no visible public interest in their artistic productions.14 In his study, he concludes that “members of ethnic minorities almost never appear on the TV screen as artist, author, film-maker, actor, dancer, painter and so forth”.15 He also shows that the cause for this invisibility is not a lack of creative activity on the part of artists from immigrant backgrounds, but rather a

12 Mustafa Hussain, “Konstruktionen af den etniske virkelighed i de offentlige nyhedsmedier”, in Medierne, Minoriteterne og Majoriteten – En undersøgelse af nyhedsmedier og den folkelige diskurs i Danmark, eds Mustafa Hussain, Ferruh Yilmaz, and Tim O’Connor, Copenhagen: Nævnet for Etnisk ligestilling, 1997, 46; Peter Hervik, “Forskellighedens logik: Fremstillingen, forestillingen og forskningen”, in Den generede forskellighed: Danske svar på den stigende mulitikulturalisme, ed. Peter Hervik, Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels, 1999, 7. 13 Mustafa Hussain, “Media Representation of Ethnicity and the International Discourse”, in Medierne, minoriteterne og kulturelle samfund – skandinaviske perspektiver, ed. Thomas Tufte, Gothenburg: NORDICOM, 2003, 120. 14 Hussain, “Konstruktionen af den etniske virkelighed i de offentlige nyhedsmedier”, 66-67. 15 Ibid., 66.

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lack of attention paid to their work by the media.16 It is paradoxical, yet revealing, that the only news on ethnic minorities and artistic performance that he found was about a play written by the wellknown Danish writer Kirsten Thorup.17 The (in-)visibility of immigrant literature in the discursive arena Since the mid-1990s things seem to have changed to a certain degree – at least, the argument that immigrant literature still lacked visibility became more frequent. This may be the cause for writer Rubén Palma’s optimism in 1999: “By and large it seems that writers from an immigrant background have never before had such good opportunities to become visible in the Danish literary scene as they have now.”18 Already by this time the invisibility of immigrant writers was an issue of major concern. In his article, Palma referred to a number of new initiatives aimed at making immigrant writers more visible.19 16

Ibid.: “The cultural activities and aesthetic productions where immigrants and refugees are the main agents, normally do not reach the news of the publicly funded media – even when these activities are addressed to a wide Danish audience or to Danish society .… During this period different prizes in different competitions that were part of a number of special projects were awarded to a number of artists and authors from the ethnic minorities .… Our publicly funded media did not cover these events.” 17 Ibid., 66-67. 18 Rubén Palma, “Kampen om ordene”, Information, 7 April 1999: “Alt i alt ser det ud til, at forfattere med indvandrerbaggrund aldrig før har haft så gode muligheder for at blive synlige i det danske landskab, som nu.” Palma himself is a Danish writer from an immigrant background. He escaped the Pinochet regime to Denmark in 1974 at the age of 20 and began his literary career in the 1990s writing in Danish from the start. He is by now a distinguished writer, especially in the denoted field of multicultural literature (see Frank’s article on Denmark in this volume). In media features, for instance, that dealt with the invisibility and desire for immigrant literature and writers in Denmark in 2006, Rubén Palma’s name was among the references to the “danske skønlitterære forfattere med indvandrerbaggrund” (“Danish literary writers with immigrant background”) when the question was “Kender du dem?” (“Do you know them?”) (Soei, “Dansk indvandrer-litteratur – har vi det?”, Information, 23 February 2006). At the time of the interview Palma came second in a novel competition initiated by the former newspaper Aktuelt together with the Danish Refugee Council, Dansk Flygtningehjælp, that was addressed to writers born abroad and living in Denmark. 19 Palma mentions the novel competition sponsored by the newspaper Aktuelt, a number of initiatives conducted by the Danish Refugee Council, Dansk Flygtningehjælp, – that is, lectures and workshops – and, most importantly, new funds

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However, these initiatives did not lead to much fundamental change. In October 2000 the independent national newspaper Information ran the headline “Forlagene savner indvandrerforfattere” (“Publishing houses in need of immigrant writers”).20 Six years later, in the initial phase of the New Voices contest, the headline of an editorial in the cultural section of the conservative newspaper Berlingske Tidende similarily claimed: “Dansk litteratur savner indvandrere” (“Danish literature in need of immigrants”).21 But did the contest really bring multicultural literature to the fore in Denmark and change the situation in the longer run? Although an article on the subject in the newspaper Kristeligt dagblad in 2009 quite optimistically claimed that Denmark was on the verge of a breakthrough in this respect, the article’s author, Benjamin Krasnik, continued: “but up to today the new Danish population is not reflected in literature.”22 Subsequently the Danish scholar Søren Frank noted in a radio interview in May 2010: Danish literary history lags behind in respect to portrayals of immigrants and migrants. There is a very big discrepancy between what the international trend looks like and what the Danish literary scene looks like.23

The interview was broadcast under a headline that both before and after the New Voices-contest seems to be the leading slogan for the discussion of a Danish multicultural literature: “Vi mangler indvandrerforfattere” (“We lack immigrant writers”).

and benefits from the Danish Literary Council for writers from immigrant backgrounds. 20 “Forlagene savner indvandrerforfattere”, Information, 23 October 2000. 21 Jakob Høyer, “Dansk litteratur savner indvandrere”, Berlingske Tidende, 28 February 2006. 22 Benjamin Krasnik, “Indvandrerforfattere bryder igennem”, Kristeligt Dagblad, 10 June 2009: “men frem til i dag har den nye danske befolkningsgruppe ikke afspejlet sig i skønlitteraturen.” The headline translates as “Immigrant writers are breaking through”. 23 Søren Frank, “Vi mangler indvandrerforfattere i Danmark”, 7 May 2010: http://www.dr.dk/P1/Kulturnyt/Udsendelser/2010/05/10131831.htm: “Den danske litteraturhistorie halter jo bagefter hvad skildringer af indvandrere og migranter angår. Der er et meget stort misforhold til hvordan den internationale trend ser ud og hvordan den danske litterære landskab ser ud” (accessed 6 October 2010).

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The delayed awakening of academic interest The notion of a search for immigrant writers and immigrant literature, which apparently dominates the discourse on a Danish multicultural literature, is striking, especially in the “age of migration”, and considering the influence of postcolonial theories on literature and literary criticism.24 No less striking is the lack of attention this phenomenon has so far received in the Danish academic world. While the highly explosive debate on issues of immigrants and integration has been followed by new, critical approaches in media studies and in anthropological studies,25 one needs to look very closely to find any academic discussion and response to the debate on Danish immigrant writers and literature. Unlike the attention scholars have paid to this phenomenon in the neighbouring Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Norway,26 in Denmark the discursive field of indvandrerlitteratur has received only limited attention.27 Although some works were written on the topic around the year 1990,28 Marie Hvid Damborg’s 24

Paul White, “Geography, Literature and Migration”, in Writing Across Worlds: Literature and Migration, eds Russell King, John Connell, and Paul White, London: Routledge, 1995, 13. 25 See Tim O’Connor, “Den moderne tids frådende mediepolitiske hav”, in Medierne, Minoriteterne og Majoriteten, 101-72; Peter Hervik, “Forskellighedens logik: Fremstillingen, forestillingen og forskningen”, in Den generede forskellighed, 15-50; Thomas Tufte, “Medierne og Etniske Minoriteter i Danmark – Traditioner i og udfordringer for dansk medieforskning”, MedieKultur, North America, XXXII (2008). 26 See Nilsson’s and Leonard’s articles on Sweden in this volume. On Norway, see Ingeborg Kongslien, “New Voices, New Themes, New Perspectives: Contemporary Scandinavian Multicultural Literature”, Scandinavian Studies, LXXIX/2 (Summer 2007), 197-226. 27 Wolfgang Behschnitt, “Das Andere der Einwandererliteratur: Überlegungen aus literaturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive”, in Der Norden im Ausland – das Ausland im Norden: Formung und Transformation von Konzepten und Bildern des Anderen vom Mittelalter bis heute, ed. Sven Hakon Rossel, Vienna: Ed. Praesens, 2006, 142; Flemming Røgild, “At forske i anderledeshed, forskellighed, etnicitet og race”, in Kritik som deltagelse, eds Henrik Kaare Nielsen and Finn Horn, Aarhus: Aarhus University, 2006, 203f.; Tufte, “Medierne og Etniske Minoriteter i Danmark”, 5. 28 See Ole Hammer and Charlotte Toft, Det flerkulturelle Danmark, Aarhus: Klim, 1995; Bülent Diken, “En kommentar til debatten om indvandrerkultur”, in Muslimsk indvandrerkultur i Danmark, eds Sven Dindler and Asta Olesen, Aarhus: Aarhus University, 1989, 121-125; Mehmet Ümit Necef, “Kunsten der skabes når ‘tyrkeren’ iscenesættes”, in Muslimsk indvandrerkultur i Danmark, eds Sven Dindler and Asta Olesen, Aarhus: Aarhus University, 1989, 103-119; Mehmet Ümit Necef and Asta Olesen, “Samtale med forfatteren ørfan Gevherro÷lu”, in ibid., 127-37.

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(unpublished) 2003 thesis is the only work up to now that thoroughly deals with the phenomenon within Denmark. As early as 2001, Hans Hauge criticized this situation: “In all the Nordic countries, too, a multicultural literature is emerging, which even today is still not integrated into the Danish literary debate.”29 Hvid Damborg came to a similar conclusion: “Immigrant literature as a literary phenomenon is particularly peripheral both in regard to the academic world and in regard to the ordinary reader.”30 With the anthology New Voices and the ensuing debate, more scholarly attention has been directed to indvandrerlitteratur.31 Thus, for academia as well the project, New Voices initiated something of a breakthrough in Danish culture. The anthology effect The anthology New Voices was, in fact, neither the first nor the only anthology of immigrant literature in Denmark.32 From the end of the 1980s until the turn of the millennium six other collections had already been published: Indvandrere og afmagt (Immigrants and Powerlessness),33 Fuglevingen: en indvandrerantologi (A Bird’s Wing: An Immigrant Anthology),34 Himlen er min hat (The Sky is My Hat),35 Mellem land og land – bjergene, vandene, vindene (Between

29

Hauge, “Postkolonialism”, 370: “Der er tillige en indvandrerlitteratur på vej i alle nordiske lande, som dog endnu ikke er integreret i den danske, litterære debat.” 30 Marie Hvid Damborg, “(Ind)vandrerlitteratur”, MA thesis, Aarhus University, 2003, 49: “Indvandrerlitteraturen er som litterært fænomen i Danmark særdeles perifer både i forhold til den akademiske verden og i forhold til den almene læser.” 31 Peter Leonard, “Det Etniske Gennembrud: Multicultural Literature in Denmark”, Multiethnica: Meddelande från Centrum för multietnisk forskning, No. 31, (2008), 31-33; Moritz Schramm, “After the ‘Cartoons’: The Rise of a New Danish Migration Literature?”, in Migration and Literature in Contemporary Europe, eds Mirjam Gebauer and Pia Schwarz Lausten, Munich: Meidenbauer, 2010, 131-47; Frank, “Vi mangler indvandrerforfattere i Danmark”. 32 My perspective is restricted to literary anthologies only, in contrast to the numerous anthology publications from (linguistic-)pedagogical or socio-critical perspectives that focus on issues like immigrants, refugees, and integration. 33 Indvandrere og afmagt, ed. Gonzales Vargas, Sorø: Rostra, 1989. 34 Fuglevingen: en indvandrerantologi, ed. Peter Poulsen, Copenhagen: Vindrose and INDstøt, 1992. 35 Himlen er min hat, eds Annette Skov Rasmussen et al., Aarhus: CDR, 1994.

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Countries – The Mountains, the Waters, the Winds),36 Snapshot – øjebliksbilleder fra et flerkulturelt Danmark (Snapshots of a Multicultural Denmark),37 and Mellem gode mennesker (Among Good People).38 Although, as this indicates, there was interest in immigrant literature during the 1990s, these anthologies received much less attention than the New Voices. It is striking, for example, that the earlier anthologies were less often reviewed. While we find articles on the New Voices in almost all of the quality broadsheet newspapers (Berlingske Tidende, Politiken, Information and Jyllands-Posten), some of the earlier anthologies were not reviewed in any of them.39 Moreover, none of the earlier anthologies were published by one of Denmark’s major literary publishers, but by or in cooperation with institutions connected with the immigrant/integration sector. These included the Danish Refugee Council, the former Library for Immigrants called Indvandrerbibliotek,40 and the publishing house 41 CDR-Forlag that published a number of works of non-fiction and fiction by authors from immigrant backgrounds related to topics of immigration and integration. As Wendelius’ study on Swedish immigrant literature has shown, writers from immigrant backgrounds are more likely to be successful when they publish in larger and better-known houses instead of more peripheral houses that specialize 36

Mellem land og land – bjergene, vandene, vindene, ed. Erik Stinus, Copenhagen: Amadeus, 1995. 37 Snapshot – øjebliksbilleder fra et flerkulturelt Danmark, ed. Nana Gyldenkærne, Copenhagen: Høst and Son, 1998. 38 Mellem gode mennesker, eds Jensen Hauge, Peter Morell, and Ole Ravn, Aarhus: Systime, 2000. 39 The data indicating this are taken from Denmark’s public library’s database (http://www.bibliotek.dk), where references to reviews on all books and publications are listed. Although only seven reviews of New Voices are noted there, in the other cases this number varies between one and four. Even though obviously not all existing reviews and critics are recorded here – in my own research on the New Voices I found many more – the difference is striking. 40 In 2006, it changed its name to Bibliotekscenter for Integration (Library Centre for Integration). For more information on this institution, see Patricia Kern, “Bibliotheken und Integration von Bibliotheken in Dänemark”, Bibliotheksdienst, No. 41 (2007), 121-35. 41 Examples are Adil Erdem, who already in 1986 was announced “Årets indvandrerforfatter” (“Immigrant Writer of the Year”) by the former institution IndSam (an umbrella organization for institutions dealing with immigrants and refugees) and Morteza Seighali.

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in publications on issues related to ethnic minorities, immigrants or integration.42 In that way the interest of Denmark’s biggest publishing house Gyldendal and the national newspaper Berlingske Tidende in 2006/07 in publishing immigrant literature was crucial to initiating significant public interest in this literature. Comparing the paratexts of the earlier anthologies, three main features of their conceptualizations of immigrant literature stand out. First, in all the anthologies’ paratexts, the publishers express their wish to counterbalance the dichotomous and negative portrayal of immigrants rife in the public debate on immigrants in Denmark.43 It is conspicuous that in these paratexts immigrant literature is always meant to serve intercultural communication and understanding by helping Danes gain better insight into the situation of immigrants and recognize the diversity among immigrants. In some cases, the social-

42 Lars Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten: immigrant- och minoritetslitteratur på svenska 1970-2000, Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, 2002, 25pp. So far, no comparable research exists for the Danish literary field and the place of literary publications by authors from immigrant backgrounds. However, in this context Rubén Palma’s comment is quite revealing, when he remembers the beginning of his career as a writer in Denmark: “Da jeg begyndte at skrive på dansk i 1985, blev jeg nærmest bare henvist til Dansk Flygtningehjælp” (“When I started to write in Danish in 1985 I almost exclusively had been advised to turn to the Danish Refugee Council”) (Pernille Bramming, “Danskerne på kornet”, Aktuelt, 31 July 1999). 43 For example: “et indslag i den bestemt ikke problemfrie, men meget mulighedsfyldte dialog, der i disse år opstår overalt i det danske samfund mellem os, der har centrum her, og de godt 25.000 mennesker, der i løbet af 1980’erne – forskudte fra deres centrum – har fundet asyl i Danmark” (“a contribution to the dialogue, which is certainly not free of problems, but full of opportunities, and which in these years emerges everywhere in Danish society between us, who are at the centre here, and the over 25,000 people who during the 1980s – outcast from their centre – found asylum in Denmark”) (Indvandrere og afmagt, 7). Additionally: “I en tid, hvor vi mærker nogle uhyggelige tendenser i dele af samfundet vendt mod de nye danskere, og hvor vi alt for ofte ser stereotype fremstillinger af bestemte indvandrergrupper, er det rart at kunne vise en anden side, nemlig den kulturelle styrke, som mange af vores nye medborgere er i besiddelse af” (“At a time when we see some alarming tendencies in some parts of society that are directed against the new Danes, and when we all too often see stereotyped images of certain immigrant groups, it is good to show another side, namely the cultural potential which our new fellow citizens possess”) (Fuglevingen: en indvandrerantologi, 7).

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political impetus is even combined with a pedagogical one, as if the publication were meant to be used as a textbook in school.44 Secondly, inclusion in the anthologies was based largely either on the authors being of a different background than Danes, or on the issues of multicultural encounter and cultural difference being paramount in their work, and mostly on a combination of the two.45 This leads to an understanding of indvandrerlitteratur as somehow about authentic narrators and narrations alike, and suggests that there is a kinship among the contributing authors derived exclusively from their non-Danish background.46 Such an approach thus foregrounds the use of non-literary criteria as those decisive for inclusion. A revealing example is given by the anthology Mellem land og land. Although the editors claim that the texts were selected “out of artistic considerations”, the choice of literary texts proved to be exclusively motivated by an interest in works by authors from immigrant backgrounds. This was reflected thematically as well: “fiction of refugee- and immigrant topics.”47 Immigrant literature in this

44

See for instance in Himlen er min hat, where the editors suggest a reading as “debatbog, tekstsamling og guide til forfatterskaberne, og den er velegnet til undervisning i folkeskolens ældste klasser, på gymnasier, sprogskoler, tekniske skoler, HF osv” (“debate book, text collection, and guide to the author’s work, and it is qualified for use in junior high schools, secondary schools, language schools, technical schools, or upper secondary education, and so forth”) (Himlen er min hat , 9). The volume Mellem gode mennesker is indeed intended as a school textbook, where the anthology section is the crucial and biggest part, but only one out of three. The other two give contextual (religious, sociological, and psychological) background information and make suggestions for use in school. See Mellem gode mennesker, 5. 45 Apart from the anthologies Indvandrere og afmagt, Snapshot, and Mellem gode mennesker, the list of contributors consists exclusively of authors from immigrant backgrounds. 46 Mellem land og land, 7: “Immigrantforfattere er mere end mange hjemmeboende kunstnere blevet opmærksomme på, at vi lever i en verden af forandring, og at kulturmødet i sig selv rummer en udfordring til at tage vedtagne værdier op til ny vurdering, såvel værdier i det trosamfund, man tilhører, eller det land, man er flygtet fra, som i den kultur og det land, man er kommet til” (“Immigrant writers, more than the artists living here, became aware that we live in a changing world, and that the cultural encounter in itself provides a challenge to take up conventional values and evaluate them anew, both in the religious community one belongs to and the country one escaped from, as well as in the culture and the country one came to”). 47 Ibid.: “ud fra kunstneriske hensyn”, “flygtninge- og indvandrertemaer … i fiktiv form”.

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conceptualization was thus not only determined by the authors’ backgrounds, but also restricted to immigrant-related topics. Thirdly, a major concern in all of the anthologies was the status of immigrant literature as literature, judged according to the aesthetic performance and the literary potential of the writers in question. Comparing the first with all later anthologies we can observe a significant modification in this respect. In the case of the first anthology, Invandrere og afmagt, the title and the cover drawing convey a clear message that triggers distinct expectations: immigrants as well as their literature are associated with suffering and handicap.48 These expectations are confirmed in both aesthetic and thematic respects in the anthology’s Introduction.49 Here the co-publishers express the need to justify alleged aesthetic (and topical) limitations on the grounds of the social, economic, and emotional disadvantages associated with being an immigrant.50 In the paratexts of the later anthologies, on the contrary, the topics taken up by, and the literary performance of, writers from immigrant backgrounds are portrayed in a positive light. The immigrant situation is no longer one solely of suffering and disadvantage, but also of challenge, chance, and advantage.51 Literature by writers from immigrant backgrounds is presented as introducing new aesthetic features.52 In this regard, the

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An almost naked man sits handcuffed on a chair, the background is hatched in grey, and the man’s face displays loneliness and powerlessness. 49 The anthology Indvandrere og afmagt is co-edited by the Danish Refugee Council, and the Introduction was written by its former chief of information, Finn Slumstrup. 50 Indvandrere og afmagt, 7: “Og læseren ville kunne konstatere, at følelsespresset er stort i denne digtsamling. Så stort, at meddelelsesbehovet overvinder hvad digtene måtte savne i kunstnerisk format eller hvad vi, der ikke er forskudt fra centrum, nu kan stille op af krav til ‘det gode digt’. Vigtigere er det, at her meddeler en række af de levende mennesker, der for en kortere eller længere tid opholder sig i Danmark som flygtninge, nogle af deres erfaringer, deres smerte og håb til flygtninge og til os danskere” (“And the reader will be able to state that the emotional pressure is enormous in this anthology. So big, that the need to tell their story transcends what the poems are lacking aesthetically, or what we, who have not been cast out from the centre, expect from a ‘good poem’. More important is that there are a number of people staying in Denmark as refugees for a shorter or longer period who tell about their experiences, their pain and hope, to refugees and us, the Danes”). 51 See footnote 46. 52 Mellem land og land, 7: “Flere immigrantforfattere har indoptaget en vesteuropæisk litterær form og kombineret den med deres forudsætninger i f.eks. arabisk kultur”

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anthologies published during the 1990s demanded that immigrant writers and immigrant literature should not be viewed in isolation from the national literary scene, but as part of, and contributing to it.53 This demand was most strongly articulated in the second anthology, Fuglevingen. Here all the paratexts – consisting of the Introduction, Preface and blurb – consists of a sustained plea for a critical approach to the essence of Danishness and for a re-reading and re-writing of Danish literature.54 However, a close reading of the anthologies’ paratexts reveals that almost all of the anthologies produced before 2006 got caught in a trap, which can be called the “anthology effect”. The paratexts (as well as the very existence of the volumes) clearly demonstrate the problematic aspect of dealing with the phenomenon of immigrant literature, since non-literary criteria – such as the authors’ immigrant backgrounds and the social-political debates about immigration – dominate the approach to immigrant literature. In spite of the explicit demand to re-evaluate the position of immigrant literature in the literary field on the basis of its literary quality and to assess this literature itself on the grounds of its literary merits, the anthologies nonetheless produced an unintentional othering and exoticizing. They did so primarily by alleging a literary kinship between the different authors because of their non-Danish backgrounds. The third anthology, Himlen er min hat, offers a good illustration of this. Its publisher, Annette Skov Rasmussen, declares as her aim “to make them visible as Danish writers” and adds: “I do not call them immigrant- or refugee writers, and I do not call their texts immigrant

(“Many immigrant writers have adopted Western European literary forms and combined them with the traditions of, for example, Arabic culture”). 53 See Pierre Bourdieu, “Das intellektuelle Feld: eine Welt für sich”, in Rede und Antwort, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992, 159. 54 See Fuglevingen: en indvandrerantologi. The Introduction starts: “Enten er vi ikke helt danske eller dansk er et mangfoldigt begreb. Det specielt danske, som hadefulde demagoger og reaktionære fremholder, er, næsten i sagens natur, en danskhed af i går og selv om sådan stærkt idealiseret, for ikke at sige: idydlliseret” (“Either we are not truly Danish or Danish is a manifold term. The special Danishness, represented by hate-filled demagogues and reactionaries, is in its nature outdated and highly idealized as such, and even glorified”). And in the blurb it says: “Vil man kende dansk litteratur i dag, må man også læse de 17 digtere i denne bog” (“If you want to know Danish literature today, you must read the 17 poets in this book”).

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literature. These labels are foolish ….”55 Before supplying the reader with the literary texts, she provides portrayals of each of the eight authors through lengthy interviews that have this very effect, since it is the authors’ “foreignness and not their universal humanness”, as Hvid Damborg stated in her thesis that is emphasized by the paratext.56 This example shows that especially when texts that are added to an anthology to give detailed information about authors’ nonDanish backgrounds, the notion of difference and otherness, sometimes even of exoticization, actually undermines the approach not to label57 and categorizes them as a specific group. The anthology New Voices Considering the earlier anthologies, it may seem surprising to describe Danish immigrant literature, now labelled New Voices, as a new phenomenon. It is true that the names of the fourteen authors published there (out of 200 taking part in the competition) are indeed quite new. Apart from one, Milena Rudez, none appear in any of the earlier volumes, some of whose authors are now distinguished writers in the Danish literary scene.58 It is also true that in comparison to the earlier anthologies, the interest of Denmark’s biggest publishing house Gyldendal and the national newspaper Berlingske Tidende in publishing immigrant literature helped to arouse greater public interest in immigrant literature. But as I have tried to show, neither the immigrant literature itself nor its presentation in anthologies was new. The question is, whether (and if so, how) the conceptualization of

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Himlen er min hat, 9: “at gøre dem synlige som danske forfattere”, “Jeg kalder dem ikke for indvandrer- eller flygtningeforfattere, og jeg kalder ikke deres tekster indvandrerlitteratur. Det er tåbelige etiketter….” 56 Hvid Damborg, “(Ind)vandrerlitteratur”, 33. 57 With the exception of the volumes Fuglevingen and Mellem land og land, where the editors explicitly referred to indvandrerlitteratur (“immigrant literature”) and immigrantforfattere (“immigrant writers”), circumlocutions for the contributors and their literature are always used. For instance: “kunstneriske mennesker, som er udlændinge” (“creative people, who are foreigners”); “flygtninge, indvandrere og danskere” (“refugees, immigrants and Danes”) in Indvandrere og afmagt; “danske forfattere fra hele verden” (“Danish writers from all over the world”) in Himlen er min hat; or, “danske forfattere, der er født uden for landet” (“Danish writers born outside of the country”) in Mellem gode mennesker. 58 For example Rubén Palma, Adil Erdem, or Janina Katz.

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immigrant literature advanced here nonetheless marked a turning point. First, all of the main features found in the earlier anthologies’ paratexts are also present in the Introduction to the New Voices, including the anthology-effect and its hazards. They are apparent in the Introduction by Naja Marie Aidt, a well-known Danish writer, and even more clearly in the anthology’s conception and twofold structure, consisting of a text section and an interview section. The Introduction creates the impression that the authors of the collection represent first and foremost different voices – different from Danish, since the “socalled other ethnic background” was a precondition for participation in the competition.59 The several pages displaying portraits of the authors in the anthology’s second part further emphasize the othering. Although the interview-based portraits emphasize the writers’ personal commitments to literature and their literary inspirations, their immigrant backgrounds are always highlighted as well. Thus, the literature they produce is pictured as a group phenomenon: first and foremost defined by and restricted to non-literary criteria, namely the authors’ non-Danish ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Second, expectations regarding this immigrant literature are conspicuously defined by the other cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the authors. Explicitly there is no restriction with respect to theme in the anthology’s paratext (nor in the competition’s call). We clearly can find an indication in Aidt’s Introduction (and in the competition’s call as well) as to which topics Danish literature is most in need of and who should fill this gap: Vi har brug for historier om, hvordan det er at blive betragtet som fremmed, selvom man ikke føler sig fremmed. Historierne om, at man til gengæld føler sig fremmed i det, de etnisk danske betragter som ens hjemland. Og alle andre historier. Om ikke at være velkommen. Om racisme. Men også om varme og humor og kærlighed og sorg og håb og vrede og alt muligt, der ikke har noget som helst med etnicitet at gøre.60 59

Naja Marie Aidt, “Forord”, in Nye stemmer, eds Naja Marie Aidt, Jens Andersen, and Rushy Rashid, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2007, 7: “såkaldt anden etnisk baggrund.” 60 Ibid., 8: “We need stories about how it feels to be considered a stranger, even though one does not feel like a stranger at all. Stories, in other words, about feeling

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Third, the socio-political impetus, which was dominant in the anthologies of the 1990s, is also highly evident in the conceptualization of the New Voices in several ways. The wish to counterbalance the negative contemporary political discourse about immigrants, integration, and stereotypes associated with groups like the Danish People’s Party is clearly expressed. The anthology is meant to reveal the diversity among immigrants in Denmark.61 Immigrant literature is also conceived as a way to facilitate intercultural communication and integration, and as having a pedagogical purpose.62 In this respect, the anthology New Voices does not display a new, different, or even critical approach to immigrant literature at all. Instead, it perpetuates the approach of the 1990s anthologies, which were dominated by a non-literary agenda. Nevertheless, literary innovation was a crucial component in the conceptualization of the New Voices. In this respect, Aidt says in the Introduction: like a stranger in a land which is considered as their homeland by ethnic Danes. And all other stories. About not being welcome. About racism. But also about warmth and humor and love and sorrow and hope and anger and all possible other things, which have nothing to do with ethnicity at all.” 61 Ibid., 7: “Ofte forbinder man umiddelbart og fejlagtigt andre kulturens repræsentation i Danmark med arabiske, mellemøstlige eller pakistanske folkeslag. Men det er kun retorikken hos visse politiske partier, der er så entydig. De indsendte tekster viser med al tydelighed bredden af ‘indvandringen’. Forfatterne er også ukrainere, bosniere, indere og afrikanere. Selvfølgelig er de det. Mange af skribenterne er flygtninge eller børn af flygtninge, andre har giftet sig til Danmark” (“The representation of different cultures in Denmark is often immediatly and wrongly related to people from Arabia, Middle-East or Pakistan. But it is just the rhetoric of certain political parties which is so unambiguous. The submitted texts clearly show the breadth of ‘immigration’. The authors are also Ukrainian, Serbian, Indian, or African. Of course they are. A number of the writers are refugees or children of refugees, other have married into Denmark”). 62 Ibid., 8: “Det er på høje tid, at alle de børn og unge i vores uddannelsessystem, der på den ene eller den anden måde har en etnisk minoritetsbaggrund får nogle litterære pejlemærker og forbilleder, som de kan identificere sig med. Men lige så vigtigt er det, at deres etniske danske kammerater læser med. For både litteratur og integration virker som bekendt begge veje – det er en udveksling” (“It is high time that all children and youngsters in our educational system, who are of an ethnic minority background of some kind, find some literary examples they can identify with themselves. But it is of some importance that their ethnic Danish mates read along. Because both literature and integration work, as is known, in both directions – it is an exchange”).

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Dörthe Gaettens Men det, der slog mig allermest ved læsningen, er, at denne litteratur ikke vokser ud af en dansk, skandinavisk eller vesteuropæisk tradition. Teksterne er enten funderet in en anden litterær tradition eller udsprunget af en art tomrum mellem to kulturer. Og det er netop dette ‘tomrum’, jeg venter mig meget af – et tomrum, som på en måde er et trøstesløst og goldt sted, hvor der ikke er meget at læne sig op ad, men som jeg er sikker på med tiden vil blive et nyt og kraftfuldt sted at skrive litteratur fra i Danmark. Den franske filosof Jacques Derrida taler om the messy spaces in between, som netop produktive steder eller rum at udfolde sig i og tale fra. Vi har sådan brug for nye stemmer, der taler fra nye steder.63

This approach to immigrant literature clearly shows the influence of literary theory, especially deconstructivism and post-colonial theory. In this quotation we find the expectation that hybrid phenomena will emerge from the “messy spaces in between” in Derrida’s terminology, and it uses – almost as if it were common knowledge and without any further need for introduction – the term “empty spaces”, which certainly evokes associations with postcolonial theory, such as Homi Bhabha’s concept of in-between spaces.64 In a number of instances, the innovative capacity of the New Voices is subtly indicated as a prospective, unfolding phenomenon, something that Denmark sorely needs. In this context, the quality of the literary language is highlighted: “And we need to be surprised by the language, which abruptly shows new sides: sometimes a brutal harshness and dreadfulness, at other times an unexpected tenderness and beauty.”65 Concerning linguistic skills, the Introduction acknowledges limitations imposed on multilingual writers: “Some 63

Ibid.: “But what struck me most, when reading, was that this literature does not emerge from a Danish, Scandinavian or Western European tradition. The texts are based either on a different literary tradition or emanated from a kind of empty space between two cultures. And it is this very ‘empty space’ I expect a lot from – an empty space which coincidentally can be a dreary and golden place, where there is nothing to rely on, but which, I am sure, will become a new and powerful place to write from for Danish literature. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida speaks of the messy spaces in between as very productive places or spaces to unfold and speak from.” 64 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994. 65 Aidt, “Forord”, 8: “Og vi har brug for at overraskes over sproget, der pludseligt viser nye sider: nogle gange en brutal hårdhed og grimhed, andre gange en uventet blidhed og skønhed.”

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texts were translated from, for example, Persian to Danish and were written by people who first came to Denmark as adults or when middle aged.” The argument also points to the prospect of generational change, to the second generation, since it continues: “Other ones were written in Danish by youngsters, who were born here and have only been in their homeland(s) for vacation.”66 Aidt tries to conceptualize the New Voices as an emerging phenomenon within Danish literature. She also transforms the concept of Danish literature by setting it in a transnational literary context and discourse. However, her Introduction itself is strikingly ambivalent, in that she retains the established view of immigrant literature as something different and exotic. The debate about New Voices: uproar in the duck pond The national (and even transnational) discourse presented in the anthology’s Introduction is mirrored in the debate about New Voices. Although, as we have seen, immigrant literature certainly did exist in Denmark well before New Voices,67 the argument that writers from non-Danish backgrounds have been largely invisible cannot simply be dismissed. 66

Ibid., 7: “Nogle tekster var oversat fra eksempelvis persisk til dansk og skrevet af mennesker, der først som voksne eller midaldrende er kommet til Danmark”, “Andre var skrevet på dansk af unge, som er født her og kun har været på ferie i deres hjemland(e).” 67 A search for writers from non-Danish backgrounds and for immigrant literature in some of the less-visible layers of Danish media, such as newspapers or other publications that do not have a broad public profile, reveal a number of findings. In 1994, for example, the magazine Samspil: et tidsskrift om indvandrere (Samspil: A Magazine about and for Immigrants) reviewed authors and new books that portrayed “mødet mellem dem og os” (“the encounter of them and us”), and featured a series of portraits of Danish writers from multicultural backgrounds by Rubén Palma, including Marco Goli (see Rubén Palma, “Ønske driver værket”, in Samspil, October 1998), Adil Erdem (see Rubén Palma, “Jeg skriver ikke som de Andre”, in Samspil, May 1999), and Jamal Jumá (see Rubén Palma, “Den uendelige fortælling: Interview med Jamal Jumá”, in Samspil, October 1999). In this respect, a look at the internet catalogue bazART is revealing. The database is maintained by the Dansk Flygtningehjælp (Danish Refugee Council) and the Statsbiblioteket/BiblioteksCenter for Integration (State Library/The Danish Library Centre for Integration) and is aimed at mediating contacts with and knowledge about artists of multicultural identity. Although the number is rather small, about 49 artists with multicultural identities are listed under the category literature (http://www.bazart.dk).

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In February 2006, the project New Voices commenced with three features about immigrant literature in Denmark in the conservative newspaper Berlingske Tidende.68 In an editorial on the topic, the chief cultural editor Jakob Høyer argued: Forlæggere og forfatterforeninger forklarer, at der ikke findes indvandrerforfattere i Danmark – slet ikke. Begge parter kunne dog nok gøre mere i jagten på de nye og fremmede navne. Forfatterforeningerne kunne hjælpe de potentielle indvandrerforfattere på vej – sprogligt, teknisk og moralsk.69

Although similar complaints had been voiced before,70 this time Denmark’s most renowned publishing house Gyldendal responded to the provocation. Only three months after the appeal, Berlingske Tidende and Gyldendal jointly announced the competition, with an August submission deadline of the same year. Meanwhile, other Danish media, such as the quality newspapers Information and Weekendavisen, the national broadcast Danmarks Radio, and the tabloid newspaper Ekstrabladet followed suit and discussed the absence of and desire for immigrant writers and immigrant literature. That way, in the words of the Berlingske Tidende’s cultural editor, broad media attention was “taking part in focusing attention on the new voices in Danish literature – and thus, taking part in making them part of the literary scene”.71 In July the project gained further attention when BG Banks Litteraturpulje, a fund of the Danish BG Bank-Group 68

Søren Kassebeer, “Sproget og jeg er ved at smelte sammen”, Berlingske Tidende, 18 February 2006; Søren Kassebeer and Jens Andersen, “Opbrud i andedammen”, Berlingske Tidende, 18 February 2006; Høyer, “Dansk litteratur savner indvandrere”. 69 Høyer, “Dansk litteratur savner indvandrere”: “Publishers’ and writers’ associations declare that Denmark has no immigrant writers – at all. Both institutions, however, could make more effort to search for new and foreign names. Writers’ associations could help potential immigrant writers in paving the way – linguistically, practically, and morally.” 70 John Henriksen Skribent, “Sprogets general”, Information, 28 October 2000: “Når de store forlag savner indvandrere som ophavsmænd til skønlitterære tekster skyldes det nok, at man ikke gør en pind for at finde og opdyrke eventuelle talenter” (“When the big publishing houses are in need of immigrants as authors of fiction it is because they do not lift a finger to find and promote potential talents”). 71 Jakob Høyer, “Lyt til de nye stemmer”, Berlingske Tidende, 8 July 2006: “med til at skabe fokus på de nye stemmer i dansk litteratur – og dermed med til at give dem plads på den litterære scene.”

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dedicated to supporting literature, joined in by donating the first prize. New Voices was now no longer only the name of an anthology, but also of a literary prize. It was awarded in November 2006 in Copenhagen at Forum, the largest Danish book fair. Together, the call, the competition, the awards, and the anthology initiated an extensive discussion throughout Danish media. Thus interest in Danish immigrant writers and immigrant literature – now termed the new voices – became visible as never before. This was indeed a significant turning point. At first glance, the project New Voices seems to have been triggered by the low profile of immigrant literature in Denmark. Revealingly, however, the call for literature in May 2006 opened with a comparison of Denmark with literary developments and multicultural literatures in neighbouring countries: Vores nabolande har dem allerede: Markante forfattere, der er kommet til udefra og har pustet nyt liv i litteraturen. Hvorfor er den slags forfattere meget mindre synlige i Danmark?72

As this quotation indicates, more was at stake than the status quo of immigrant writers and their literature. The competition’s call continued: Et lands litteratur skal afspejle den virkelighed, den bliver til i. Når virkeligheden ændrer sig, skal litteraturen følge med. Den danske virkelighed er, både etnisk og kulturelt, meget mere broget end for blot få år siden, og derfor skal der nye skønlitterære stemmer til. Vi har brug for poesi og prosa, der ser den danske virkelighed med nye øjne. Som reflekterer over mødet mellem to kulturer. Eller som slet og ret er udtryk for, at nu er der også kommet nye og andre stemmer ind i dansk litteratur.73 72

“Litteraturkonkurrence for alle med anden etnisk og kulturel baggrund”, 2006: http://gbedb3.gyldendal.dk/Gyldendal/gb/main.nsf/alle/2DEB6D5E8E4BA714C1257 17800484FB7?opendocument (accessed 24 September 2011): “Our neighbouring countries have them already: prominent writers that came from outside have breathed new life into literature. Why are these writers much less visible in Denmark?” 73 Ibid.: “The literature of a country is supposed to reflect reality in the making. When reality changes, literature must follow suit. Danish reality is, both ethnically and culturally, much more coloured than it was just a few years ago, and hence new literary voices need to come along. We need poetry and prose that examines Danish

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The desire to make immigrant writers and their literature more visible in 2006 seems, in fact, strongly interwoven with the especial desire to raise the status of Danish literature. Immigrant literature is portrayed as a new asset and a way to catch up with other national literatures, which were proving more successful in opening up to cultural difference and diversity.74 References to the success of writers from immigrant backgrounds in neighbouring countries – Sweden, the UK, Germany – were omnipresent during the debate in 2006/07: Salman Rushdie, Monica Ali, and Hanif Kureishi were named as examples in English literature; Feridun Zaimoglu, Emine Sevgi Özdamar for German literature; and Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Marjaneh Bakthiari, and Alejandro Leiva Wenger as the new and successful generation of immigrant writers in Sweden. The frequent name-dropping shows that the multicultural literatures of Britain, Germany, and Sweden were well-known phenomena. They seemed to stir up a kind of Danish inferiority complex, making Denmark appear to be an “underdeveloped country with regard to literature”.75 As the American scholar Peter Leonard put it, “a kind of literature common elsewhere” that by now had become “writable and marketable” was “sadly lacking at home”.76 Hence, the breakthrough by immigrant writers was also perceived as Denmark catching up with global literary developments. In this vein, Johannes Riis, head of the Gyldendal publishing house, felt prompted reality with new eyes that reflects the encounter of two cultures, or that plainly and simply expresses that now also new and other voices are part of Danish literature.” 74 About a similar phenomenon, see the contribution on the situation in Flanders by Sarah De Mul in this volume. 75 The quotation in full reads: “På ét punkt er Danmark stadig et litterært uland: Modsat flere af vore nabolande har vi ingen store forfatterstjerner med anden etnisk baggrund .… I Storbritannien har de skønlitterære superstjerne som Salman Rushdie og Hanif Kureishi. I Tyskland findes markante forfattere som Aras Ören og Emine Sevgi Özdamar. I Sverige kan de prale af en ung mand som Jonas Hassen Khemiri, der er braget igennem og har solgt 100.000 eksemplarer af sin roman Ett öga rött” (“In one respect Denmark is still an underdeveloped country with regard to literature: In contrast to our neighbouring countries we do not have big stars among the writers from different ethnic backgrounds .… In Great Britain they have literary superstars like Salman Rushdie and Hanif Kureishi. In Germany there are prominent writers like Aras Ören and Emine Sevgi Özdamar. In Sweden they can show off with a young man like Jonas Hassen Khemiri, who has shot forward and sold 100,000 copies of his novel Ett öga rött”) (Kassebeer and Andersen, “Opbrud i andedammen”). 76 Leonard, “Det Etniske Gennembrud”, 32.

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to state: “We seem now to come closer to the literary course of the outside world.”77 As a matter of fact, by 2006 multicultural literature had come to be seen as an instrument both to improve the national image (in comparison with other nations) and to promote the idea of cultural diversity. It had also become a marketing instrument for commercial profits. As the bestsellers in other national literatures had shown, ethnic writing sells. It is characteristic that the new interest in immigrant literature was justified both on behalf of the national self-image as well as on behalf of the other. With respect to the latter, critique of this ethnic focus turned out to be the focal point for debate, since the competition required some sort of different ethnic background to participate.78 During all stages of the project this requirement received varying publicity, ranging from simply repeating the competition’s slogan and disseminating portraits of its individual authors79 to a critical acknowledgment of the project’s well-meant intention.80 Opinions of the project varied from moderate critique81 to sharp and outspoken

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Henrik Dannemand, “Danmarks nye stemmer”, Berlingske Tidende, 20 November 2006: “Vi ser nu ud til at nærme os den litterære hverdag ude i verden.” 78 Astrid Trotzig, “Biografi som kategori”, Pequod, No. 34 (2004), 23-27; Thomas Mohnike, “Der ethnografische Blick: Über Literatur und Kultur als diskursive Kategorien am Beispiel schwedischer Einwandererliteratur der Gegenwart”, in Transitraum Deutsch: Literatur und Kultur im transnationalen Zeitalter, eds Jens Adam, Hans-Joachim Hahn, Lucjan Puchalski and Irena ĝwiatáowska, Wrocáaw and Dresden: Neisse, 237-53. 79 Malene Wichman, “Digter i rummet mellem tid og sted”, Information, 14 March 2007; Malene Wichman, “Jeg er træt af ‘os og dem’ samfundet”, Information, 19 March 2007; Malene Wichman, “Ud af offerrollen”, Information, 21 March 2007; Søren Kassebeer, “Sproget og jeg er ved at smelte sammen”, Berlingske Tidende, 18 February 2006; Maria Frahm, “Minderne slipper hun aldrig af med”, Berlingske Tidende, 28 October 2006; Maria Frahm, “Poesie for drengerøve”, Berlingske Tidende, 11 November 2006; Christian Leegard, “Sig mig lige – Shadi Angelina Bazeghi”, Politiken, 3 March 2007. 80 Helen Hajjaj, “Nye og tiltrængte stemmer”, Avisen.dk, 28 February 2007: http://avisen.dk/nye-og-tiltraengte-stemmer_77525.aspx (accessed 16 June 2009); Anette Dina Sørensen, “Hybridkulturens stemmer”, Politiken, 3 March 2007; Marianne Ping Huang, “At give stemme og tage ordet”, Information, 15 March 2007. 81 Thomas Thurah. “Fornemmelse for tiden”, Information, 22 March 2007; Mai Misfeldt, “De etniske kommer”, Berlingske Tidende, 28 February 2007.

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criticism.82 Although the focus on the authors’ ethnic backgrounds was clearly contested, critics nevertheless in most instances agreed with this focus, since they felt it was high time to open up Danish literature to different voices. Again, the low profile of immigrant writers and the stereotyped image of immigrants in public discourse were significant arguments.83 The decisive factor, however, seems to have been the image of Denmark itself. The renewed interest in immigrant literature in 2006/07 can best be understood by taking into consideration the proceeding debate on Danish national culture and identity, termed kulturkampen (“cultural battle”)84 by the ruling government, and the Cartoon Crisis. Schramm 82

Søren Langager Høgh, “Se negrene! – NYE STEMMER”, Litteraturnu.dk, 31 March 2007; http://www.litteraturnu.dk/univers.php?action=read&id=814 (accessed 16 June 2009): “Havde omslaget på Gyldendals og Berlingskes nye indvandrerantologi NYE STEMMER så bare været brunt i stedet for pastelgrønt. Så ville den uhørte sjofling, der ligger i at sortere litteratur efter – ikke hvad litteraturen er og siger (nej da!) – men efter forfatterens/forfatterens forældres nationalitet, skinne klart igennem. Det eneste man får ud af at sortere efter ‘anden etnisk eller kulturel baggrund end dansk’, er en udpegning af det, som angiveligt ikke er dansk” (“Were the cover of Gyldendals og Berlingskes new immigrant anthology NYE STEMMER only brown instead of pastel green! Thus the outrageous meanness that consists in grading literature according to – not what literature is and says [no way!] – but according to the authors’/the authors’ parents’ nationality, would clearly shine through. The only result that comes out by sorting literature according to ‘different ethnic or cultural background from Danish’ is to point out what is not supposed to be Danish”). 83 Karsten Nielsen, the editor of the publishing house Aschehoug, for instance, wondered about the immigrant writer’s invisibility at the onset to the New Voices project: “Sådan som indvandrere er blevet behandlet her i landet i det senere år, så ville jeg sætte spørgsmålstegn ved, om jeg selv ville have lyst til at skrive en bog som ung med udenlandsk baggrund. Så ville jeg nok hellere søge ind i den mere aggressive hip-hop” (“The way immigrants have been treated in this country in the last years, I doubt that I would be keen on writing a book as a youngster from a foreign background. I would rather choose the more aggressive hip-hop”) (“De brune”, Information, 25 February 2006). 84 Soon after the new liberal-conservative government took over in 2001, dependent on the votes of the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party, it initiated a new debate on culture and values, which it called the “cultural battle”. In the beginning, this battle was mainly directed against the Social Democrats, liberal intellectuals, and the ideas of cultural radicalism and a multicultural society, which from the new government’s point of view had been dominating cultural policy in Denmark in the preceding years, and soon after the idea of the Danish Cultural Canon was initiated. In a speech to his fellow party members at the Conservatives’ National Congress in September 2005, Brian Mikkelsen claimed that the “the medieval Muslim culture” and “a parallel

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demonstrates in his retrospective study of the New Voices event that the kulturkampen and the Cartoon Crisis were tightly interwoven.85 Like Leonard in 2008,86 Schramm found that the new interest in immigrant literature was interlocked with the consequences of the Cartoon Crisis. It symbolized the peak in the Danish debate on cultural difference and national culture under the growing influence of the nationalist Danish People’s Party, which claims that ChristianDanish culture is threatened by multiculturalism and which identifies Islamic culture as the chief threatening Other. The publication of the depictions of the prophet Muhammed in Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 not only resulted in diplomatic turmoil, but also caused enormous international interest in Denmark. Because of that, the biasfilled discourse on culture and immigrants in Denmark became known and sharply criticized from abroad, and many Danes felt the need to react. Literary and intellectual figures in Denmark particularly felt moved to take a stand against the cultural politics of the government, as symbolized by the publication of the Danish Cultural Canon, and to improve the discourse on cultural differences and diversity. Significantly, especially at the beginning of the New Voices project, the search for writers from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds was mainly focused on those of Muslim heritage.87 As Schramm states:

society, in which minorities were practicing medieval norms and non democratic thoughts” were at the “cultural battles’ new front line” (for the full speech, see Brian Mikkelsen, “Kulturkampen bliver lang og sej”, Information, 27 September 2005). 85 Moritz Schramm, “After the ‘Cartoons’: The Rise of a New Danish Migration Literature?”, in Migration and Literature in Contemporary Europe, 131-47. 86 Leonard, “Det Etniske Gennembrud”. 87 Kassebeer and Andersen are preoccupied with this quest: “Godt nok har vi halvanden håndfuld gode digtere med muslimsk baggrund eller af såkaldt ‘anden etnisk herkomst’” (“We just have one and a half handful of good authors from Muslim backgrounds or so-called ‘other ethnic origins’”); “Men i øvrigt gælder det vel, at det er en ret ny ting med muslimske medborgere” (“But otherwise the Muslim fellow citizen is something quite new ”); “står det dog fast, at der mangler markante forfattere med muslimsk baggrund i nyere dansk litteratur, og hvorfor mon det?” (“it is clear that we are lacking significant authors from Muslim backgrounds in the new Danish literature, but why is it so?”); “ikke én eneste dansk forfatter med muslimsk baggrund” (“not a single Danish writer from a Muslim background”); “en enkelt forfatter med muslimske rødder” (“one single author with Muslim roots”) (Kassebeer and Andersen, “Opbrud i andedammen”).

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He then concluded that this “also led to a new focus on literature written by migrants or inhabitants from ‘different ethnic backgrounds’”.88 Comparing the 2006/07 debate to the earlier anthology projects, a striking difference becomes visible: concern was less with the image of immigrants and immigrant writers in Denmark than the image of Denmark itself. In this manner the debate on the New Voices started out as an “Oprør i andedammen” (“Uproar in the duck pond”), as Kassebeer and Andersen’s early article in Berlingske Tidende in February 2006 was figuratively titled. The “ugly duckling” needed to be transformed into a swan, especially for Denmark’s sake. And the new search for a Danish immigrant literature as well as the New Voices contest were both meant and conceived as counter-reactions to the kulturkampen and the Cartoon Crisis.89 88 Schramm, “After the ‘Cartoons’”, 136. This connection I find confirmed in the Danish “Inspirationsrapport. Kulturel mangfoldighed set i forhold til Kunstrådet” (“Report for Inspiration: Cultural Diversity seen with Respect to the Cultural Council”) saying, “Jyllands-Postens tegninger bringer et hidtidigt ukendt fokus på Danmark og på kulturelle konflikter generelt, på verdensplan og herhjemme” (“the drawings in Jyllands-Posten focus unprecedented attention on Denmark and on cultural conflicts in general, in the world and here at home”). It further stresses that with respect to institutional activities meant to support and promote cultural diversity in the arts one could speak of “institutional racism” and that Denmark is in this respect lagging some 10-15 years behind Sweden, Norway, or the UK. The project New Voices, on the other hand, is considered as one of the most recent and successful examples that encouraged and promoted cultural diversity in the Danish literary landscape (Trevor Davis, Inspirationsrapport til Kunstrådet – kulturel mangfoldighed set i forhold til kunstrådet, Danmark: Statens Kunstråd, January 2007, 3, 5, 14, 18, and 54). 89 For example: “Hvornår det sker, det véd kun Gud eller Allah. Men det sker. Sådan ser det ud, og det ser ud til – hvilket er fantastisk ironisk og forfriskende som forårets pandehår – at den forestående tilføjelse til dansk kanon af andenetnisk litteratur, vil komme til at ske som en eftertænksom og seriøs dialog og videreførelse” (“When it will happen only God or Allah knows. But it will happen. It looks like it, and it looks like – which is fantastically ironic and refreshing like a spring breeze – that the upcoming contribution to the Danish canon by ethnic literature will happen as a thoughtful and serious dialog and pursuit”) (Christian Bonde Korsgaard, “Lad tusinde

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Shaping the new interest in immigrant literature Along with the new interest in immigrant literature came new expectations about the genre. This was apparent in the answer of the Gyldendal editor Lene Wissing when she was asked about immigrant literature already existing within Denmark: “When you think of Rushy Rashid or Nasser Khader … then it is about non-fiction or biography …. We are searching for fiction only”, she is cited as saying.90 What this example reveals is the problem with what until then Danish publishers had understood as immigrant literature.91 The old view, in which immigrant writing would be predominantly autobiographical, as blomster spire”, Sentura – Magasin for litteratur og levende Billeder, 3 March 2007). Additionally: “Forlagene er nemlig overbeviste om, at interessen efter at læse den såkaldte indvandrerlitteratur er stigende i en tid, hvor debatten om kulturkløfter raser, og hvor der pågår internationale konflikter på baggrund af tolv karikaturtegninger” (“The publishing houses are convinced that the interest in so-called immigrant literature is rising at a time of a speeded debate about cultural differences, when international conflicts emerge due to twelve cartoon drawings”) (Soei, “Dansk indvandrer-litteratur”). Further: “Den kulturelle slagside i litteraturen er problematisk og mest af alt ærgerlig. Indvandrerstemmer i dansk litteratur kunne skabe større indsigt og forståelse på tværs af kulturelle forskelle. Og netop forståelse er altafgørende og nødvendigt – hvilket de seneste måneders Muhammed-krise og en række af misforståelser er et skræmmende eksempel på” (“The cultural bias in the literature is problematic and most of all irritating. Immigrant voices in Danish literature could promote more insight and mutual cultural understanding. And this very understanding is decisive and necessary – the Muhammed crisis during the last month and a number of misunderstandings are deterrent examples for that”) (Høyer, “Dansk litteratur savner indvandrere”). 90 Jannik Lunn, “Romankonkurrence: Nye stemmer”, BogMarkedet – Tidskrift for den dankse bogbranche, 19 June 2006: “Hvis du tænker på Rushy Rashid eller Nasser Khader … så er der tale om faglitteratur eller biografier …. Det vi efterlyser er ren skønlitteratur.” Lars Ringhof, the editor-in-chief of the Danish publishing house Aschehoug, hit the same spot many years earlier when asked why so few authors from immigrant backgrounds get published: “De fleste manuskripter, som forlaget får ind fra etniske forfattere, er … ‘resultater af terapeutisk bearbejdning’ …. Og det har ikke i sig selv litterær værdi” (“Most manuscripts the publishing house receives from ethnic authors are … ‘the result of therapeutic treatment’ …. And this is not of literary value as such”) (“Forlagene savner indvandrerforfattere”, Information, 23 October 2000). 91 Soei, “Dansk indvandrer-litteratur”: “I Danmark er holdning: ‘Nå ja, er indvandrerlitteratur ikke bare sådan noget, hvor de skriver deres egen historie’. Det betragtes endnu ikke som særlig fin litteratur” (“The attitude in Denmark is: ‘Well, is immigrant literature not just something where they write their own story’. This literature is until now not considered to be of high quality”).

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Lene Wissing’s quote indicates, was now being abandoned in favour of an emphasis on literature of higher literary profile and quality. Here, though it may not be obvious at first glance, we have a situation that illustrates the distribution of power on the literary market. In a number of instances, authors from immigrant backgrounds complained that it was exactly the demand for autobiographical stories, which the publishing houses assumed would sound authentic, that hampered those authors in finding their own literary voices. Rubén Palma, for example, remembered this as an important factor at the beginning of his career as a writer in the 1990s: Min erfaring er at når man er udlænding, så forlanges at man skriver om emner der er relateret til at man er udlænding – der er jeg stødt på konstant. Det har jeg tænkt på, at jeg når jeg ikke kan lave om på det, så må jeg acceptere det og bruge det. … Det var sådan det var med den sidste bog – der skrev jeg bevidst om det at være udlænding.92

Iranian writer Marco Goli also argued in 2006 that publishing houses were almost exclusively interested in “colorful autobiographical immigrant stories” and in pigeonholing immigrant writers: “The publishing houses want typical immigrant stories ....”93 Although the large houses obviously published very little immigrant literature,94 nonetheless, as Hvid Damborg attests, they were interested most of all in autobiographical writing and storytelling. It was especially due to the larger houses’ high profile on the literary market that this image of immigrant literature became the dominant one.95 92

“My own experience is that when you are a foreigner, you are expected to write about topics related to the fact that you are a foreigner – I constantly met this opinion. I thought that if I cannot change this, I have to accept it and use it .… That was the case with my last book – I was consciously writing about being a foreigner” (quoted in Hvid Damborg, “(Ind)vandrerlitteratur”, 9). 93 Soei, “Dansk indvandrer-litteratur”: “farverige selvbiografiske indvandrerhistorier”, “Forlaggene vil jo gerne have typiske indvandrerhistorier ...”. 94 An article published in 2000 in Information stated: “Fem bøger på 10 år. Det er rekorden, når det gælder udgivelser af skønlitterære bøger, der er skrevet af forfattere med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk” (“Five books in ten years. This is the record of publications of fiction-books written by authors from ethnic backgrounds other than Danish”) (“Forlagene savner indvandrerforfattere”). This figure is based on a survey that the newspaper conducted among the biggest publishing houses in Denmark. 95 Hvid Damborg, “(Ind)vandrerlitteratur”, 28-29. Hvid Damborg’s thesis demonstrates that in Denmark during the 1990s writers from immigrant backgrounds

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Another way in which the new immigrant literature was constructed proved to be through emphasis on language skills and knowledge of Danish literary traditions. According to some of the major publishers, neither of these had previously been evidenced in immigrant writers.96 In fact, it was only in about 2006 that for the first time students from immigrant backgrounds were admitted to the Danish School for Literary Writers (Forfatterskole), an institution known for its very high demands on its students’ linguistic skills.97 That two of these students (Shadi Angelina Bazeghi and Nassrin el Halawani) were among the New Voices was highly significant for were as a rule published in smaller publishing houses, or even published at their own expense. She backs this claim with references to a biographical list of Danish immigrant literature by the former Minoritetsbiblioteket (“The library of minorities”), which is enclosed in her thesis. Further she stresses that the variation of these publications was thematically and aesthetically much more diverse compared to the preferred literature published by the larger houses. 96 “Forlagene savner indvandrerforfattere”: “‘Vi får en del materiale ind, men det er simpelthen uudgiveligt på grund af sproget’, siger Morten Hesseldahl, direktør på Høst og søn” (“‘We receive a lot of stuff, which is just not publishable due to the language’, says Morten Hesseldahl, the executive at Høst and Son”), and “‘Det er et begrænset antal af dem, som bor her, der skriver af litterær kvalitet’, siger Merete Riis, forlægger på Rosinante” (“‘There is a limited number of those who live here and who possess writing skills’, says Merete Riis, editor at Rosinante”). Further, “‘Og grunden til, at vi ikke har udgivet mere litteratur af folk med indvandrerbaggrund er simpelthen oftest, at det sproglige niveau ikke har været godt nok’, siger redaktør på den skønlitterære redaktion [Gyldendal] Niels Beider” (“‘The main reason for not publishing more literature by people from immigrant backgrounds is simply that the language skills have not been good enough’, says the publisher for fiction [Gyldendal] Niels Beider”) (Soei, “Dansk indvandrer-litteratur”). Additionally, “Min oplevelse er, at der er meget udsving i kvaliteten. De mestrer ikke helt det danske sprog, og nogle savner mere forankring i dansk litterær tradition (Forlag Borgen)” (“It is my experience that the quality varies very much. They do not exactly master the Danish language, and some are lacking knowledge of Danish literary traditions [Publishing House Borgen]”) (Thomas Revsbech, “Unge indvandrerforfattere søges”, Kristeligt dagblad, 21 June 2008). 97 Kassebeer, “Sproget og jeg er ved at smelte sammen”. Further, “På Forfatterskolen, hvor optagelsesprøverne er benhårde, er man også overbeviste om, at der er ved at ske noget. Her har man for første gang nogensinde optaget ikke bare én, men to elever med rødder uden for Danmark, nemlig Nassrin el Halawani og Shadi Angelina Bazeghi” (“In the Writers’ School, where the admission tests are very hard, they are convinced that something is about to happen. For the first time ever not only one, but two students with roots outside Denmark, namely Nassrin el Halawani and Shadi Angelina Bazeghi, were admitted”) (Kassebeer and Andersen, “Opbrud i andedammen”).

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suggesting that a new immigrant literature was emerging. Nonetheless, as early as 1999 Rubén Palma complained about the larger publishing houses’ intolerance when it came to creative writing by non-Danish writers: Hvis jeg eksperimenterer med det danske sprog og finder på nye ord eller nye ordspil, så får jeg at vide, at det er dårligt dansk … og havde det været en dansk forfatter, der havde skrevet det, ville han få roser for det …. Denne form for forudtagethed er uundgåeligt, tror jeg. Men den betyder at jeg som forfatter har mindre råderum.98

The most clear-cut way in which the emergence of a new form of immigrant literature was suggested, though, was through the many references to English, German, and Swedish examples. These comparisons fostered expectations that the new immigrant literature would be a literary genre that – explicitly or implicitly – dealt with issues of cultural diversity and the clash of cultures. Another expectation that was raised by these references was that they would experience great success on the national literary market, and also internationally. However, these expectations of innovation and change did not deconstruct the very notion of the “immigrant writer” and “immigrant literature”, something that occurred in Swedish discourse. The discussion and staging of the new immigrant literature in Denmark seemed, on the contrary, to signify the rebirth of the “immigrant writer”. Many hoped, for example, that the new immigrant literature would resemble its Swedish counterpart, and gain much broader public attention than its predecessors. Shadi Angelina Bazeghi, one of the New Voices who won the first prize, certainly felt this, growing 98

“When I experiment with the Danish language and come up with new words or puns, I am told that this is poor Danish .… Would this have been written by a Danish writer he would have been praised for it …. This kind of prejudice is unavoidable. But it means that I have less freedom of movement as a writer” (quoted in Pernille Bramming, “Danskerne på kornet”, Aktuelt, 31 July 1999). In the later short story “Roy Jackson vender tilbage” in his volume Fra lufthavn til lufthavn (2001), Palma uses this experience in fictive form (a volume also published in English as The Trail We Leave, where the story’s title is “The Return of Roy Jackson”). In a short telephone call between two Chilean writers at the end of the story, it reflects the limitations and obstacles for writers from immigrant backgrounds in Denmark imposed by the publishing houses and their expectations about the genre.

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tired of being called a “voice of the second-generation immigrants”. She commented: “They wanted to promote something specific. In this case to get more second-generation immigrants to write.”99 Thus, features like perkerdansk were celebrated by the initiators of the New Voices contest, in imitation of the rinkebysvenskan prominent in the new Swedish immigrant literature produced by their second generation.100 The response of the new Danish voices The claim that Denmark is in need of immigrant literature is still alive. Therefore, there is good reason to wonder whether the project New Voices, in spite of all its publicity, was only one of several isolated and short-lived initiatives in Denmark aimed at the promotion of cultural diversity.101 There is also reason to question whether or not initiatives of the same kind, that stress first and foremost the authors’ background as other, are desirable, if for no other reason than that the call for new immigrant writers and immigrant literature is not always met with enthusiasm by the writers themselves. Since such terms can be homogenizing and even have discriminatory effects, it is no wonder that some Danish writers from immigrant backgrounds object to such labelling. As early as the year 2000 the Iranian writer Marco 99 “Prisvinder vil ikke i bås som 2.g’er”, dr.dk, 20 November 2006: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Kultur/2006/11/20/120705.htm?rss=true (accessed 16 June 2009): “Man har villet fremme noget bestemt. It dette tilfælde at få flere andengenerationsindvandrere til at skrive.” 100 Perkerdansk is Danish slang, also called “araberslang” (“Arabic slang”). The term is a portmanteau of the Danish words for Persian (perser), Turk (tyrker), and Danish (dansk), and evokes a certain sociolinguistic slang ascribed especially to young second-generation immigrants, especially from Muslim backgrounds (Pia Quist, “Perkerdansk og rinkebysvensk”, Information, 3 March 2006; “Perkerdansk – et sprog i blomstrende udvikling”, Information, 6 January 2006). 101 Davis states: “Man overlader i høj grad den multikulturelle problemstilling til sociale og humanitære instanser, som har integrationen som det overordnede sigte, mens kulturlivet er karakteriseret ved enkeltstående initiativer og kortvarige indsatser som udtryk for ‘god praksis’ men uden større effekt og gennemslagskraft eller mulighed for at påvirke på sigt og skabe indflydelse af betydning” (“The issue of multiculturalism is to a high degree ceded to social and humanitarian agents that first and foremost are engaged in integration, while cultural life is characterized by some single initiatives and short-lived projects meant for ‘good practice’ without any bigger effect and success or the possibility to affect in the longer run and create significant influence”) (Davis, Inspirationsrapport til Kunstrådet, 13pp.).

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Goli commented: “Ethnic writers are bullshit” and “Immigrant writers are an illusion, created by the press and the publishers”.102 This was also pointed out by Hvid Damborg: Danish writers have clear objections against being labeled as immigrant writers and the like. They wish to be merely writers without being labeled a certain type of writer, which is regarded as a negative title .… In Denmark writers often reject the label immigrant writer since it blends a social term with an aesthetic realm.103

Thus neither the writers that were published in 2007 under the label “new voices” (for example Shadi Angelina Bazeghi or Nassrin el Halawani104), nor authors like Lone Aburas and Alen Meškoviü who were presented as models for the upcoming breakthrough of

102

“Etniske forfattere er noget bullshit”; “Invandrer-forfattere er en illusion, der laves af pressen og forlæggerne” (“Etniske forfattere er noget bullshit”, Information, 24 October 2000). 103 Hvid Damborg, “(Ind)vandrerlitteratur”, 71. 104 See for example Levinsen, “Bogens to verdener”, Jyllands-Posten, 23 April 2007: “Der sidder tre indvandrere på scenen og diskuterer litteratur af forfattere med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk. Mere eller mindre. For den tyskfødte universitetslærer vil meget gerne og med udførlige teoretiske overvejelser tale om, dels hvorfor Danmark ‘er langt bagefter’ andre nordiske lande, fordi her hidtil ikke er blevet udgivet ret meget immigrantlitteratur. Dels hvordan Nassrin el Halawani og Shadi A. Bazeghi oplever det at være indvandrerforfattere. Det gør de bare i dén grad ikke. Uanset at de begge har bidraget til konkurrencen og antologien ‘Nye stemmer’, som Gyldendal har udgivet for nylig. Tværtimod kæmper de to kvinder med næb og kløer og højt humør imod at blive rubriceret officielt som eksotiske ghetto-indslag. Under forsamlingens jubel får de slået et par store og håndfaste slag for først og fremmest at læse litteratur som litteratur og betragte forfattere som forfattere” (“Three immigrants are sitting on the stage and discussing literature by writers from non-Danish ethnic backgrounds. More or less. Because the German-born university teacher would like very much to talk about, and in elaborated theoretical terms, partly, why Denmark ‘is lagging behind’ the other Nordic countries, because until now not much immigrant literature has been published, and partly about how Nassrin el Halawani and Shadi A. Bazeghi experience being immigrant writers. But they just don’t want to be that at all, though both contributed to the competition and anthology ‘New Voices’ which Gyldendal published recently. On the contrary, the two women were fighting tooth and nail against being officially segregated into this exotic ghetto. With encouragement from the audience they first and foremost fought for reading literature as literature and considering writers as writers.”)

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immigrant writers two years later105 were as happy being called indvandrerforfattere as the larger publishing houses and the press were eager to designate them as such. The answer to the question whether New Voices marks a turning point is therefore twofold. On the one hand, the anthology mirrors and perpetuates the image of immigrant literature constructed by the 1990s anthologies, one fashioned on the basis of such non-literary criteria as the authors’ non-Danish background and the ability to counterbalance the negative features of the Danish public debate on immigrants. On the other hand, New Voices helped “immigrant literature” for the first time to reach a broader public, and also changed expectations about the genre. The search was explicitly focused on immigrant literature of high quality, a literature that was no longer autobiographical documentation, but rather an aesthetic reflection on the new, multiethnic reality. Immigrant literature was no longer desired and promoted because of its socio-political capacity alone, but also because of its competitiveness in relation to the old immigrant literature and with respect to marketability. This literature was also being considered in an international perspective, where it served as a valuable vehicle in the competition with other national literatures renowned for their multicultural productions of high literary quality and commercial value. The continuing push for immigrant writers indicates that many Danes still see Denmark as lagging behind. These calls for more immigrant writers, however, also suggest that in the eyes of most Danes the task of showing Denmark’s new ethnic reality rests first and foremost on the shoulders of immigrant writers themselves. Such expectations with regard to immigrant literature, however, also make 105

Under the (translated) headline “We do not represent anybody”, one article begins: “Debutanterne Alen Meskovic [sic] og Lone Aburas har baggrund i henholdsvis Bosnien og Egypten. De ønsker ikke representere en generation eller en gruppe, men sætter alligevel ord på det hjørne i Danmark, som vi sjældent præsenteres for i litteraturen” (“The debutants Alen Meškoviü and Lone Aburas are respectively from Bosnia and Egypt. They do not wish to represent a generation or a group, however, and they write about a part of Denmark to which we rarely are introduced”) (Benjamin Krasnik, “Vi repræsenterer ikke nogen”, Kristeligt Dagblad, 10 June 2009). Following this introduction, the interview is almost exclusively about their non-Danish background, and hence the notion of immigrant writer and immigrant literature is underscored.

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clear that the new interest in immigrant literature is still strongly motivated by expectations that it will provide authentic exoticized pictures of Danish reality. Lone Aburas is one of the recent examples of the new voices in Danish literature. In her 2009 debut Føtexsøen, she started to play with reader expectations about the genre, by incorporating her own biography and stereotypes of the ethnic other. Like her female protagonist Lene, the author is a second-generation immigrant who grew up in a suburb of Copenhagen. And like the father in the novel, who is introduced as the first Muslim selling pork at a Danish hotdog stand, Aburas’s real father is a Muslim from Egypt.106 Moreover, Aburas’s female protagonist wants to become a writer (like Aburas), but receives only letters of refusal from the Danish Forfatterskolen. Instead of submitting to the expectations about autobiographical writing, Aburas questions them, at the same time as she takes advantage of Denmark’s desire for more immigrant writers and parodies it.107 This ambivalent attitude is expressed in the beginning of the novel, when her fictive alter ego declares: Jeg vil gerne bekende kulør. Jeg vil gerne skrive at jeg er brun, fordi min far er fra Egypten. Så har vi det på det rene. Jeg vil gerne skrive om mig selv. Det må bare ikke blive for privat. Helst bare personligt .... Men er det overhovedet interessant?108

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Lone Aburas, Føtexsøen, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2009, 9: “Min far har både haft en grillbar og været pølsemand. Så var han måske den første muslim, der ejede en pølsevogn. Og nu er det ikke meningen, at jeg vil gå Dan Turèll i bedene her. Jeg vil bar gentag, at min far var måske den første, der var pølsemand og muslim på samme tid. Og her mener jeg ikke halalkød, men pølser af svin” (“My father had a shawarma bar and was a hotdog man. So he was perhaps the first Muslim who ran a hotdog stand. And it is not my intention to get into Dan Turèll’s way. I just want to repeat, that my father was perhaps the first one who was a hotdog man and a Muslim at the same time. And I do not talk about halal meat, but pork sausages”). 107 In the novel the fictive character Lene writes that the whole Danish literary elite drown during a cruise. 108 Ibid., 8: “I would like to show my colours. I would like to write that I am brown, because my father is from Egypt. Then things are clear. I would like to write about myself. It should just not be too private. Rather, personal only .... But is that interesting at all?”

EVERY CARPET A FLYING VEHICLE? MULTICULTURALITY IN THE DUTCH LITERARY FIELD LIESBETH MINNAARD

On 28 March 2010 the literary critic and scholar Jaap Goedegebuure published an article in the national Dutch quality newspaper Trouw, “Allemaal allochtonen, ja gezellig” (“All allochtoons, yes, gezellig”), “gezellig” being the Dutch adjective par excellence to refer to a state of comfortable and pleasant cosiness.1 The subtitle of this article ran: “Van Halil Gür tot Hafid Bouazza: hoe de migrantenliteratuur emancipeerde” (“From Halil Gür to Hafid Bouazza: How Migrant Literature Emancipated Itself”). About ten years before, in 1999, the scholar Ton Anbeek published an article on literary work by 1 “Allochtoons” (as opposed to “autochthons”, from the Greek roots allos (other), authos (same) and chtoon (soil) is the official terminology in the Netherlands to refer to Dutch citizens of migrant background. According to the government CBS (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek/Central Office for Statistics), an “allochtoon” is a person of whom at least one parent was born abroad. The CBS distinguish between firstgeneration “allochtoons” who themselves were born abroad and second-generation “allochtoons” who were born in the Netherlands. Besides, the CBS make a distinction between western and non-western “allochtoons” on the basis of a long list of “nonwestern” countries. In common usage, however, the term “allochtoons” exclusively refers to non-western “allochtoons”. As Böcker and Groenendijk demonstrate, this terminology is not without controversy, as it often works to stigmatize non-indigenous Dutch as “other” (Anita Böcker and Kees Groenendijk, “Einwanderungs- und Integrationsland Niederlande: Tolerant, liberal und offen?”, in Länderbericht Niederlande. Geschichte – Wirtschaft – Gesellschaft, eds Friso Wielenga and Ilona Taute, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2004, 303-61). In his insightful study The Perils of Belonging, Peter Geschiere carefully dissects the powerful and highly problematic workings of claims of “autochthony” (Peter Geschiere, The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe, Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 2009). I will come back to the controversial semantics of the term in the Dutch context when I discuss its use in the literary field.

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Moroccan-Dutch writers, “Fataal succes: Over MarokkaansNederlandse auteurs en hun critici” (“Fatal Success: Concerning Moroccan-Dutch Writers and their Critics”); this article was reprinted three years later, in 2002, now titled “Doodknuffelen. Over Marokkaans-Nederlandse auteurs en hun critici” (“Cuddling to Death”).2 The titles of these three articles seem to suggest that much has improved in the ten years in between 1999 and 2010, both in respect to the quality of migration literature and in respect to the position of this literature within the literary field. Anbeek’s early assessment of what was then, in the late 1990s, considered a new phenomenon, is cast in rather dramatic terms; the title of Goedegebuure’s retrospective article evokes an image of a harmonious multicultural coffee table idyll. In this article I set out to provide a critical overview of the development of multicultural literature in the Netherlands. I focus in particular on the influence of and the discussion on that strand of literature that is nowadays mostly called migrant or migration literature.3 The choice to focus on this migration literature instead of on the broader category of multicultural literature that is central to this volume demands some explanation. In the following discussion of multicultural literature I leave out what one could call Dutch postcolonial literature, the Dutchophone literature that results from and reflects on the Netherlands’ colonial history. Although in many cases writers of this kind of literature have gone through processes of migration as well, the huge differences in background and history necessitate careful differentiation between postcolonial and migration literature as two particular strands of multicultural literature. In starting my discussion of multicultural literature in the Netherlands with the publication of Gekke Mustafa (Mad Mustafa) by the Turkish migrant Halil Gür in 1984, and by putting the public celebration and .

2

Ton Anbeek, “Fataal succes: Over Marokkaans-Nederlandse auteurs en hun critici”, Literatuur, VI (1999), 335-41, and “Doodknuffelen. Over Marokkaans-Nederlandse auteurs en hun critici”, in Europa Buitengaats. Koloniale en postkoloniale literaturen in Europese talen, ed. Theo D’Haen, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2002, 289-301. 3 As my article will make clear there is no consensus in Dutch academia about the most adequate terminology for literature by writers of non-Dutch ethnic origin. Each term has its historically determined qualities as well as its deficiencies, and it seems that every particular case requires a new decision for the most suitable term in that particular case. Meaning, connotations, and boundaries change over time.

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popularity of multicultural literature in the late 1990s at the centre of my discussion, this article very much follows the dominant readers’ opinion. I concentrate on that strand of multicultural literature that more or less caused – or is at least at the centre of – the heightened discursivity of multicultural literature. It was literary work by writers of migrant background that triggered broad public attention and seemed to raise an awareness of the multiculturalization of Dutch letters. The socio-political context of multicultural literature should be taken into account here as well: the heightened discursivity of multicultural literature and that of the multicultural society go hand in hand. This article will now demonstrate how the appearance of “migrant writers” on the literary scene prompted the public and academic reflection about the multiculturalization of the Dutch literary field. It discusses the appearance, the hyped popularity, the politicization, and finally the integration of multicultural literature in the Dutch literary field. It aims to provide insight in the development from multicultural literature as a new and extremely popular phenomenon that rose to fame in the 1990s, towards the mainstreaming of writing by authors of multicultural background in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The critical overview starts with the one and only lonely migrant writer Halil Gür in the 1980s, and concludes with the bicultural poet Ramsey Nasr, who was elected Dutch “dichter des vaderlands” (“poet of the fatherland”) in 2008. Finally, it reflects on the question of whether multicultural literature has now become a fullfledged part of Dutch mainstream literary culture, or whether it still occupies a position of ethnicized Otherness. Multiculturality in the Dutch literary field As I already mentioned in my introduction, the Dutch history of “migration literature” began in 1984 with the publication of Halil Gür’s story-collection Gekke Mustafa (Mad Mustafa). This collection of ten stories answers to the contemporary expectations of firstgeneration migrant writing perfectly well: the stories offer insight in the hard life of the stereotypical guest labourer “Ali” – “what does it matter, Hassan or Ali”– who tries to survive hardship and hostility in

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the Dutch host country.4 It is not difficult to reductively read the stories as social documentary with an emancipatory aim: opening the eyes of a Dutch readership for the deprivation of their Turkish fellow human being. It was exactly this emancipatory potential that was praised when, two years after its publication, Gekke Mustafa won the first “multicultural” E. du Perron Prize. This E. du Perron Prize was founded in 1986 by the municipality of Tilburg in cooperation with the Arts Faculty of Tilburg University in order to reward groups or individuals working in the cultural field who made an extraordinary contribution to the good relations and understanding between the various ethnic groups living in the Netherlands. The prize was named after the Dutch writer E. du Perron (1899-1940), who spent many years of his life in the former Dutch Indies, now Indonesia, and wrote several literary and essayistic works in which he reflects on questions of humanity and interculturality. The E. du Perron Foundation explains that the prize aims to award persons who, like him, dare to critically question social circumstances and who help to transcend cultural boundaries and divisions. The E. du Perron prize was the first initiative in the cultural field that acknowledged the multicultural transformations taking place in Dutch society and culture, and aimed to encourage critical reflection on this process within the cultural field.5 4

“Wat maakt het uit, Hassan of Ali” (Halil Gür, Gekke Mustafa en andere verhalen, Breda: De Geus, 1985, 25). 5 Prize-winners were, among others, Gerda Havertong, Marion Bloem, Max Velthuijs, Hafid Bouazza, Anil Ramdas, Carl Friedman, Nilgün Yerli, Nicolaas Matsier, and Abdelkader Benali. The aim of the E. du Perron Prize is not without controversy, as the award of the prize to Bouazza illustrates. Bouazza won the E. du Perron Prize in 1996 for his story-collection De voeten van Abdullah (Abdullah’s Feet). The winning of this prize, which primarily decorates a cultural contribution to a harmonious multiethnic society, posed a problem for Bouazza’s self-positioning. In an interview with Wilma Kieskamp in the national newspaper Trouw, he comments that the award in some way also feels like an affront: “Ik schrijf omdat ik wil schrijven, niet omdat ik de bedoeling heb om meer begrip tussen de culturen te kweken. Hou toch op. En ik schrijf al helemaal niet omdat ik me de tolk voel van de tweede generatie allochtonen. Ik ben geen maatschappelijk werker” (“I write because I want to write, not because I have the intention to foster more understanding between the cultures. Please leave off. And I write even less because I see myself as the interpreter of the second-generation ‘allochtoons’. I am not a social worker”) (Bouazza quoted in Wilma Kieskamp,

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Halil Gür’s Gekke Mustafa as well as its successor De hemel bleek grauw (Heaven Appeared Grey) that was published in 1988, were, and for quite some time remained, odd exceptions within the Dutch literary field. Unlike the situation in the neighbouring country Germany, where several first-generation labour migrants have been contributing – in the German language – to the literary scene since the early 1980s, Gür remained very much the only one of his kind.6 It was only during the second half of the 1990s that young writers of labour migration background – mostly those called the “one-and-a-half” (who migrated before the age of thirteen) and second generation – entered the Dutch literary field in any considerable measure. This does not automatically mean that migrants were not writing, but in any case it means they were not publishing, at least not in the Dutch language with Dutch publishing houses.7 An initiative that tried to change this situation was the annual writing contest that the El Hizjra Foundation started organizing in 1992. Since then, this foundation has allocated several El Hizjra Literary Prizes, meant to encourage persons of migrant background to write poetry or short prose in Dutch, or in the Arab or Tamazight language. The awarded work was published in a small anthology and prize winners were offered a master-class in creative writing. Initially the contest was explicitly meant for migrants of Moroccan and Arab origin, and thus an activity restricted to the respective minority, but by now the “Bekroonde Hafid Bouazza gebruikt archaïsch Nederlands in sprookjesachtige verhalen”, Trouw, 21 January 1997). 6 See Liesbeth Minnaard, “Between Exoticism and Silence: A Comparison of First Generation Migrant Writing in Germany and the Netherlands”, Arcadia: International Journal for Literary Studies, XLVI/1 (2011), 199-208 for a discussion of this discrepancy in the appearance of labour migrant writing in the Dutch and the German cultural fields. 7 It seems that the Dutch early acknowledgement of cultural pluralism and the official support for cultural activities within minority groups (and in native languages) resulted in a striking absence and silence of the first-generation migrant group in the dominant culture and language. In a country like Germany, where migrants’ participation in society was independent of state support, several quasi-private or semi-institutional initiatives had a stake in stimulating the contribution of firstgeneration labour migrants to the dominant cultural field. These initiatives resulted in a cultural production by labour migrants in the German language much larger than in the Dutch situation. See Liesbeth Minnaard, New Germans, New Dutch: Literary Interventions, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008, 15-50.

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criterion of origin is applied less strictly. In 2010, the foundation’s website proclaims that the El Hizjra prize has developed into an important multicultural prize. This is true insofar that it has certainly gained resonance far beyond the boundaries of its minority margin. Since its institution in 1992, the El Hizjra Prize has functioned as an important springboard for a literary career in the Dutch cultural field. Writers like Mustafa Stitou, Abdelkader Benali, Muhammed Benzakour, Rashid Novaire and Khalid Boudou, well known by now, all started their careers within the El Hizjra “literary school”.8 It was only in 1994, however, that this kind of migration literature managed to reach a broader, more mainstream audience. Mustafa Stitou’s performance as poet on the Poetry International festival of that year, and the ensuing publication of his poetry collection Mijn vormen, are often seen as the breakthrough, not only of Stitou himself but also of literature of migration in general.9 Both Stitou and his poetry collection were granted a very positive welcome, and also rather suddenly stirred public interest in work by other writers of migrant backgrounds. Several writers followed in Stitou’s footsteps, among them Hans Sahar, Naima el Bezaz, Hafid Bouazza, and Abdelkader Benali. The Dutch “alterity industry” The sudden interest in literature by writers of non-Dutch ethnic origin was not restricted to literature of labour migration, but also concerned work by writers of colonial or refugee background. Almost all works by ethnic minority writers, at that time generally labelled “allochtoon” writers, shared in a hearty welcome and a growing public interest. In retrospect, several critics maintain that at that time all major 8

For a more elaborate discussion of the role of El Hizjra in the Dutch cultural field, see the contribution by Laroui and Nijborg in this volume. 9 In the previous year, the Iranian-Dutch writer Kader Abdolah published the storycollection De adelaars (The Eagles, 1993). His presence in the Netherlands resulted from flight rather than from labour migration, which made him, in comparison to most Dutch writers of migrant background, a relative newcomer in Dutch society and in the Dutch language. Although the literary work of writers of very diverse refugee background – Moses Isegawa and Lulu Wang are other examples – is generally included in the category of multicultural literature, it nevertheless occupies a distinctive position in the discussion of this literature. For a discussion of Stitou’s poetry, see the contribution by Yves T’Sjoen in this volume.

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publishing houses were eagerly searching for “allochtoon” writers to include on their list. They disapprove of the fact that this concern to bring these writers into the spotlight mainly stemmed from marketing reasons: they were hyped as “exotic fruit” on the Dutch literary scene. The literary merits of the work of these new, ethnicized celebrities often appeared only of secondary importance, after the “fascinating Otherness” of their literature and, even more so, of themselves. Their work was supposed to represent the Dutch world from the critical and refreshing perspective of the outsider. Lisa Kuitert addresses the commercial aspects of “migrants’ literature” in her article “Niet zielig, maar leuk. Nederlandse uitgevers van multiculturele literatuur” (“Not pathetic, but nice: Dutch publishers of multicultural literature”). She critically discusses the policy of Dutch publishers in respect to literature by ethnic minority writers and assesses that literary quality indeed appears to have been only of secondary importance after the commercial interest of “exotic-sounding names” (“exotisch klinkende namen”).10 In this sense the Dutch cultural field eagerly participated in what Graham Huggan in his study The Postcolonial Exotic describes as the “alterity industry” that boomed in the 1990s. Huggan argues that this global alterity industry successfully trades literature by the ethnic other as a cultural commodity. This literature is subjected to a “domesticating process through which commodities are taken from the margins and reabsorbed into mainstream culture”.11 Whereas Huggan primarily refers to postcolonial “world literature”, literature that travels from one place (often the margin) to another (mostly the West), his argument also holds for the situation within, for instance, the Dutch national space. Literature from the margin, written by ethnic minorities, is labelled “different” and marketed accordingly. On book covers publishers promise access to foreign and exotic worlds, provided by writers who are expected to represent or even incorporate this exoticness themselves. This promise is independent of the theme, language, or content of the literary writing: it is the writer’s “other” ethnic identity that guarantees for the work’s cultural difference. 10

Lisa Kuitert, “Niet zielig, maar leuk: Nederlandse uitgevers van multiculturele literatuur”, Literatuur, VI (1999), 364. 11 Graham Huggan, The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins, New York: Routledge, 2001, 22.

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Many of the “allochtoon” writers themselves were not too happy with this alterity industry, despite the fact that it enabled them to publish and provided them with a readership. First of all, they criticized the term “allochtoon” writer for its stigmatizing impact. In response to the question as to whether he could be considered the “allochtoon” of the publishing house, Benali, for instance, replied as follows: De indeling allochtoon-autochtoon is onzinnig op literair en menselijk niveau. Ik kan er niets over zeggen zonder dat het lijkt dat ik er met gespeelde onverschilligheid over praat. Echt, het gaat mij om mijn eigen krediet voor het boek, niet om mijn afkomst.12

Secondly, writers of migrant backgrounds objected to the ethnicizing and marginalizing effect of the alterity industry: they were grouped together purely on the basis of their different ethnic origin and independent of their writing. Bouazza especially, at that time a young debutant of Moroccan origin, time and again spoke out against his ethnicization and marginalization in the Dutch literary field. In his opinion, Dutch publishers were mainly looking for a model Moroccan, a Moroccan noble savage. He, however, did not fancy this role and vehemently rejected the imposed Moroccan identity. In a context of ethno-marketing and ethnic commodification, Bouazza kept arguing and pleading for his literary acceptance as a Dutch writer.

12 Benali quoted in Marijke Vlaskamp, “Hier is de model-Marokkaan”, Het Parool, 5 April 1997. “The categorization allochtoon-autochtoon is nonsensical both on a literary and on a human level. I can’t say anything about it that does not seem to be said with feigned indifference. Really, I’m concerned about the credits for my book, not about my origin.” Six years later Benali repeats his critique and pleads for a general dismissal of the stigmatizing term: “Het is een inhoudsloos word .… Je moet gewoon iedereen Nederlander noemen, dan ben je van het probleem af” (“It is a word of little substance .… you should just call everyone Dutch, then you get rid of the problem”) (Benali quoted in Sietse Meijer, “Je hoorde overal: Oek, Oek, Oek”, Het Parool, 10 May 2003). In the Mosse lecture of 2002, Bouazza, on the contrary, doubts the transformative impact of exchanging terms when – not without irony – he wonders: “wordt het niet tijd om de mensen te veranderen in plaats van de onschuldige taal geweld aan te doen?” (“isn’t it time to change the people instead of doing violence to the innocent language?”) (Hafid Bouazza, “Nederland slikt te veel onzin van moslims: Mosse lezing”, NRC Handelsblad, 20 September 2002).

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Bouazza’s recurrent objection that he is a Dutch rather than an “allochtoon” writer is well known. In an interview in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant, he famously positioned himself as follows: Ik zeg altijd: ik ben een Nederlandse schrijver, want ik schrijf in de Nederlandse taal en daarom heb ik dezelfde rechten en plichten als welke andere Nederlandse schrijver ook .... Ik wil best mijn bijdrage leveren aan een multiculturele samenleving, maar alleen doordat wat ik schrijf niveau heeft.13

The fact that Bouazza makes the Dutch language into the determining criterion for his Dutch authorship can be regarded as quite typical of the Dutch situation. Both Bouazza and Benali, probably the two bestknown writers of migrant backgrounds, are praised for their skilful use of the original Dutch language. Whereas Benali explores the elasticity and the limits of the Dutch language by using a dynamic mix of genres and linguistic repertoires (for example, the combination of children’s songs with quasi-philosophical reflections), Bouazza is well-known for his archaic Dutch vocabulary. In reviews of his work, he is often acknowledged as the treasure hunter of the Dutch language: he digs up and refurbishes words that have long been lost and forgotten. In an interview with Marita de Sterck he even describes himself as committed to a “holy battle”: “I believe that the Dutch language is the actual protagonist of my book. With my style I try to hold on to the specific identity of the language, to return the Dutch language from the kingdom of the dead, as it were”.14 The experimentation of these two writers with and their innovation of the Dutch language cannot be placed within the realm of creolization or pidginization; also, the idea of textual bilingualism as described by 13

Bouazza quoted in W. Kuipers, “Ik ben een Nederlandse schrijver”, De Volkskrant, 1 May 1998: “ I always say: I am a Dutch writer, because I write in the Dutch language and for that reason I have the same rights and obligations as any other Dutch writer whatsoever .... I am surely willing to make my contribution to a multicultural society, but only in that what I write has quality.” 14 Bouazza quoted in Marita De Sterck, “Schoonheid en betekenis: Hafid Bouazza en de grenzen van taal en verlangen”, Kultuurleven, IV (1997), 96: “Ik denk dat het Nederlands de echte hoofdfiguur van mijn boek is. Ik probeer met mijn stijl het eigene van de taal te behouden, als het ware het Nederlands uit het dodenrijk terug te halen”. For a more elaborate discussion of Bouazza’s figurative language and writing, see the contribution by Henriëtte Louwerse in this volume.

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Declerq and Boyden does not apply. On the contrary, the overwhelming Dutchness of their writing confronts and disarms any ethnicized assumptions readers may have about the presumably accented language of “allochtoon” writers.15 A third point of resistance to the alterity industry concerned the idea that literature by “allochtoon” writers necessarily reflected on and contributed to the Dutch multicultural society. It seemed as if the theme and purport of their literary writing was predetermined by their migratory backgrounds and the outsider position appointed to them in Dutch society. Besides, they felt as if they were assigned some kind of social responsibility: to foster intercultural understanding and even to improve social integration. Thus, on several levels the combination of commercial exoticization and a hypercorrect reception of “migrants’ literature” had fatal consequences for the writers concerned: their non-Dutch ethnic origin overshadowed the literary quality of their writing. Several indigenous Dutch (and Flemish) writers and critics joined in criticizing the hyped ethnicization of Dutch literature. However, these more settled actors in the literary field tended to disqualify and even dismiss with the new exotic writing altogether – exactly because of its hyped appearance. The literary authority Jeroen Brouwers formulated this critique in his provocative collection of pamphlet- and persiflagelike texts Feuilletons. He explicitly attacks Hans Sahar as a “youthful Hague-Moroccan pilferer and giggling gigolo”, and describes the publication of Sahar’s work as an illustrative example of the commodification of literature. The real target of Brouwers’ anger, however, is the publishing houses he accuses of merely thinking in terms of profit: “‘Allochtoon literature’: that could well become a lucrative Trend … !”16 A similar attack on publishers’ exoticist policies was the fake publication of a collection of short prose by the Moroccan-Dutch writer Yusef el Halal. Soon after its publication the name Yusef el Halal appeared to be the pseudonym of a group of 15

Although the lack of code-mixing in most popular Dutch multicultural literature strikes the eye, this does not mean that all multicultural literature is written in a standardized Dutch. The work of the Persian-Dutch writer Kader Abdollah is a good example of the alienating as well as innovative use of accented language in literature. 16 Jeroen Brouwers, Feuilletons, Zutendaal: Uitgeverij Noli me tangere, 1996, 64: “jeugdige Haags-Marokkaanse kruimelaar en giegelende gigolo.” And “‘Allochtone literatuur’: dat zou wel eens een lucrative Trend! kunnen worden… !”

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ethnic Dutch writers who aimed to unmask the privileging of “exotic” ethnic backgrounds by Dutch publishing houses.17 For “allochtoon” writers, the available means of protest and resistance to the ethicized commodification of their writing were rather limited: ethno-marketing simply established opportunities and publicity that they would not have had without the emphasis on their “other” ethnic identity. A practical dilemma, for instance, consisted in either publishing in one of the anthologies of writing by “allochtoon” writers, or not publishing at all. The positioning of Ayfer Ergün, the editor of one of these anthologies, Het land in mij: Nieuwe verhalen van jonge schrijvers op de grens tussen twee werelden (The Country Within Me: New Stories by Young Writers at the Border Between Two Worlds, 1996), illustrates this dilemma.18 She strongly opposes the categorization “allochtoon” literature in the preface to the volume: In fact the term “allochtoon” literature only says something about the origin of the authors and nothing about the content of their stories. For that reason the authors themselves are not unequivocally pleased with this imposed categorization. They emphasize that they want to be regarded as Dutch writers and that they do not want to be grouped under one label.19

17

For a full discussion of this masquerade as well as its implications, see SjoerdJeroen Moenandar, “The evaluation and positioning of literary work by authors with a Muslim background”, in The Autonomy of Literature at the Fins de Siècles (1900 and 2000), eds Gillis Dorleijn, Ralf Grüttemeier, and Liesbeth Korthals Altes, Leuven: Peeters, 2007, 241-60. 18 For a more elaborate discussion (and critique) of the “two worlds paradigm”, see Leslie A. Adelson, “Against Between: A Manifesto”, in Unpacking Europe: Towards a Critical Reading, eds Salah Hassan and Iftikhar Dadi, Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and NAi Publishers, 2001, 244-56, as well as Jim Jordan, “More Than a Metaphor: the Passing of the Two Worlds Paradigm in GermanLanguage Diasporic Literature”, German Life and Letters, IV (2006), 488-99. 19 Het land in mij: Nieuwe verhalen van jonge schrijvers op de grens tussen twee werelden, ed. Ayfer Ergün, Amsterdam: Arena, 1996, 8: “Het begrip allochtone literatuur zegt eigenlijk uitsluitend iets over de herkomst van de auteurs en niets over de inhoud van hun verhalen. De auteurs zelf zijn dan ook niet onverdeeld gelukkig met dit hokje waarin ze zichzelf geplaatst zien. Zij benadrukken dat ze beschouwd willen worden als Nederlandse schrijvers en willen niet onder één noemer worden gebracht.”

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The anthology itself, however, contributes to exactly the categorization that these writers, according to Ergün, oppose. Ergün’s preface also seems to communicate a double message: she makes a plea for the acknowledgment of personal and literary diversity among migrant writers, but at the same time she suggests that their literature gives testimony of their experiences as second-generation migrants. Academic interest, terminology, and categorization The academic discussion on migration literature also developed quite a bit later in the Netherlands than in other multicultural European countries (for example, Germany, Great Britain, and France).20 In 1997, Henriëtte Louwerse published the first analysis of the “new phenomenon” that she describes as “The Emergence of Turkish and Moroccan Migrant Writers in the Dutch Literary Landscape” in the article’s subtitle.21 Her article (in the international journal Dutch Crossing) was a forerunner in academic circles: despite the persistent public popularity of multicultural literature, this interest did not yet have an academic counterpart. Whenever Dutch multiculturality was addressed as an issue at all, then this attention generally concerned colonial and postcolonial literature. This is, for instance, the case with the volume Tussenfiguren: Schrijvers tussen de culturen (Intermediary Figures: Writing Between the Cultures) that was edited by Elisabeth Leijnse and Michiel van Kempen and published in 1998. In this volume Dutch literature of migration is strikingly absent among analyses that mostly focus on postcolonial literature. Something similar is true for the literary journal Armada that a year later, in 1999, dedicated a special issue to the theme “Migrants” and engaged the same Michiel van Kempen as guest editor. Here, too, it is either Dutch postcolonial literature or foreign migration literature that feature as objects of study. The absence of Dutch literature of migration in this 20

But earlier than in Flanders and Denmark, as the articles by Dörthe Gaettens and Sarah De Mul in this volume demonstrate. It is hard to explain this discrepancy as it cannot be linked to either a colonial history or the history of labour migration exclusively, as the comparison with a country like Germany makes clear. For a discussion of literature of migration in the German context, see Minnaard, New Germans, New Dutch, 59-61. 21 Henriëtte Louwerse, “The Way to the North: The Emergence of Turkish and Moroccan Migrant Writers in the Dutch Literary Landscape”, Dutch Crossing, I (1997), 69-88.

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special issue on “Migrants” is especially striking given the fact that in March 1996 Armada had already featured an issue on the theme “Postcolonial literature”. At least the title of the 1999 issue, “Migrants”, raises expectations as to a shift of focus from postcoloniality to migration. The introductory articles to both Tussenfiguren and the Armada “Migrants” issue, however, offer several points of reference for the reflection on Dutch literature of migration. The question of categorization and the search for an appropriate terminology, for example, are prominent topics of discussion. In Armada, van Kempen maintains in his introduction that “Except for their moving house, migrant writers do not have that much in common; the individual imagination wins by far from the shared experience”. Nevertheless, he simultaneously assesses that these writers share a particular characteristic: the perspective of the outsider on the dominant Dutch Self. He writes “They screen society in a way that is out of reach of the ‘autochthonous’ writer”, thus suggesting that this outsider position involves a certain inquiring view of Dutch society.22 Here van Kempen assumes that literature by the ethnic Other offers a particular outsider perspective on dominant society. He argues that the marginalization of these writers provides them with “privileged knowledge”: knowledge that is exclusively connected to their subjugated position. In the introduction of Tussenfiguren, editors Leijnse and van Kempen are much less definite (although not less explicit) about the position of the “migrant writer”. They argue, as the title of the volume already indicates, that these writers occupy an intermediary position: Ze hangen tussen een definitief verlaten verleden en een slecht omlijnde toekomst. Ze omarmen een nieuwe wereld terwijl ze achterom kijken of ze kijken vóóruit terwijl zij die nieuwe wereld van

22

Michiel van Kempen, “Vindingrijke zwervers: Een woord vooraf”, Armada: Tijdschrift voor wereldliteratuur, IV (1999), 6: “Behalve hun verhuizing hebben migrantenschrijvers niet zo veel gemeen, de individuele verbeeldingskracht wint het met afstand van de gedeelde ervaring”; and “Ze lichten de maatschappij door op een wijze die buiten het bereik van de ‘autochtone’ schrijver ligt.”

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They believe it is impossible to strictly define the position of the migrant writer, as they are figures of what they call the “polyvalent reality” of a globalizing, transforming world.24 Studying their work requires multiple perspectives. The journal Literatuur was the first to actually discuss Dutch literature of labour migration, which by that time, in 1999, had achieved an amazing popularity. This popularity – and the questioning thereof – is the subject of several of the contributions to the special issue of Literatuur: “Literaturen in het Nederlands” (“Literature in Dutch”), co-edited by Odile Heynders and Bert Paasman. In her preface to this issue, Heynders writes: Nederland verandert .… De Nederlandse literatuur verandert .... De contouren van één Nederlandse literaire traditie vervagen en tegelijkertijd wordt de canon omvangrijker en veelkleuriger, omdat allochtone auteurs hun eigen plaats verwerven.25

She argues that in these times of globalization and migration, “national definitions of literature” no longer apply, and for this reason she chooses to use the term “multicultural literature”. In the introductory opening article of “Literaturen in het Nederlands”, Bert Paasman immediately rejects this term again. He proposes the term “ethnic literature” for a very diverse field of literature by writers who share the fact that “that their roots lie in another country with another culture, that they are to a larger or lesser

23 Tussenfiguren: Schrijvers tussen de culturen, eds Elisabeth Leijnse and Michiel van Kempen, Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1998, 3: “They waver between a definitely left behind past and a badly demarcated future. They embrace a new world while looking back or they are looking forward while they fend off that new world. They are nestfoulers, peelers, chameleons, they are all of this and none of it completely …” 24 Ibid., 5. 25 Odile Heynders, “Ten geleide”, Literatuur, VI (1999), 323: “The Netherlands changes …. Dutch literature changes …. The contours of one Dutch literary tradition fade and at the same time the canon becomes larger and more colourful, because “allochtoon” authors obtain their own place.”

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degree bi-cultural”.26 He adds that “ethnic literature” often shows signs of political engagement, as it is generally written from a position of social marginalization. Its writers by necessity redefine their identities in a process of negotiating both the country and culture of origin, and their new home. Like van Kempen in Armada, Paasman connects the minority position of these writers to expectations of a particularly critical view on Dutch society in their literature.27 In his contribution “Fataal succes: Over Marokkaans-Nederlandse auteurs en hun critici” already mentioned at the opening of this article, Ton Anbeek explicitly discusses literature of Moroccan migration and addresses the hype that encompasses its writers. He decisively rejects the label “allochtoon” writers as concealing and homogenizing in favour of the more specific “Moroccan-Dutch writers”. Nevertheless, he also adds a word of doubt to this categorization: “to what extent does it actually make sense to speak about Moroccan-Dutch authors as if it concerns a separate group?”28 Later in the article, Anbeek suggests that the criterion of thematic commonality – “the scenery of the emigrant life” – in respect to the literary work could be a reason to group these writers, but then, “When the scenery of the emigrant life fails, obviously also the ground for the label ‘Moroccan-Dutch’ falls away”.29 He undermines this non-essentialist strain of thought, but in his final statement he suggests that “migration” might be MoroccanDutch writers’ most “fruitful theme”. Anbeek further argues that the literature by these writers generally encountered a “politically hypercorrect reception”.30 In their abundant praise for the Moroccan newcomers, reviewers regularly disregarded the sometimes limited literary qualities of the hyped works 26 Bert Paasman, “Een klein aardrijkje op zichzelf, de multiculturele samenleving en de etnische literatuur”, Literatuur, VI (1999), 329: “dat hun roots in een ander land met een andere cultuur liggen, dat ze in meer of mindere mate bi-cultureel zijn.” 27 My main objection to Paasman’s terminology is that it ignores the fact that indigenous Dutchness constitutes an ethnic category as well. In his use, the term “ethnic” is problematically reserved for otherness. The structural invisibility of whiteness as an ethnic category is critically discussed within Whiteness Studies. 28 Anbeek, “Fataal succes”, 335: “in hoeverre is het eigenlijk zinvol over Marokkaans-Nederlandse auteurs te praten alsof het om een afzonderlijke groep gaat?” 29 Ibid., 342: “Wanneer de decorstukken van het emigrantenleven ontbreken, valt uiteraard de basis weg voor het etiket ‘Marokkaans-Nederlands’.” 30 Ibid., 336.

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ofWliterature. He assesses that this initial attitude of “condescending benevolence” solely attached to the writers’ Moroccan origin changed after a while.31 Anbeek recapitulates the growing scepticism among reviewers after the literary multiculturality hype in one confrontational question: “What is being praised now, Bouazza’s talent, or the fact that he knows more Dutch words than the average native Dutch person?”32 He assumed that – anno 1999 – the hype had passed its highest peak, not knowing that there was still the “multicultural” National Book Week of 2001 to come. A national book event: “Writing between two cultures” The popular National Book Week is an annual event in the Dutch cultural field organized by the Stichting Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek (Collective Propaganda Foundation for the Dutch Book). Every year a central theme is chosen and in 2001, this theme was “Het land van herkomst: Schrijven tussen twee culturen” (“The Country of Origin: Writing between Two Cultures”).33 The Book Week Gift and the Book Week Essay of that year were both written by writers of migrant backgrounds, and an impressive range of publications by Dutch writers of non-Dutch ethnic origin was presented to the reading public.34 Multiculturality in Dutch letters was 31

Ibid., 342. Ibid., 341: “Wat wordt er nu geprezen, Bouazza’s talent of het feit dat hij meer Nederlandse woorden kent dan de gemiddelde autochtoon?” In his writing Bouazza makes use of archaic Dutch terms and expressions that have been broadly forgotten or have become out-dated. See my previous discussion of Bouazza’s re-discovery or even re-invention of the Dutch language as well as Louwerse’s contribution to this volume. 33 The Dutch National Book Week is comparable to the German “Buchmesse” or the French “Le Salon du Livre” in terms of media attention. The 2001 title is again a reference to the Dutch author E. du Perron: Het land van herkomst (The Country of Origin) is the title of a canonized work of his from 1935. 34 Every year the CPNB foundation invites two Dutch authors to write the Book Week gift and the Book Week essay. The Book Week gift of 2001, Woede (Anger), was an exception insofar that a foreign migrant wrote it: Salman Rushdie. It is not surprising that this unexpected choice against an established tradition caused quite some uproar, especially among Dutch writers of migrant backgrounds. The choice of Rushdie seemed to suggest that either there were no Dutch migrant writers available, which appears very unlikely given the rise in migrant writing that I have already described, or that the quality of this Dutch-language writing did not meet the quality standards of the CPNB foundation. 32

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talk of the town for ten days in a row (a long week), and the “migrant writer” featured in numerous events and newspaper publications. This time, however, the overwhelming media attention was legitimate: in its capacity as the commercial peak of the book sellers’ year, the Book Week allows for an overdose of attention (and sales) concerning whatever is related to that year’s theme. One example of the 2001 Book Week’s ethno-marketing is the publication of a revised version of the Het land in mij. This storycollection was now reprinted, in strongly reduced form but with the same title, as a small five-guilder gift book for the “BGN-booksellers”. Instead of twelve stories, the reprint contained only five stories, of which two were new. Bouazza exchanged his contribution for another and the popular Abdelkader Benali now joined the happy few. The preface by editor Ergün was replaced by a preface by the much betterknown writer Naima El Bezaz. Its message, however, remained very much the same. In an autobiographical mode, El Bezaz relates about her successful transformation from small girl of Moroccan migrant background, without any fluency in the Dutch language at the moment when she started elementary school, to a recognized author in this same Dutch language. Her critical assessment of this process, however, very much resonates with Ergün’s 1996 complaint of ethnicization: Al snel realiseerde ik me dat alle aandacht niet alleen met mijn schrijftalent te maken had, maar vooral met mijn achtergrond. Marokkaanse en tweede generatie, daar ging het om in interviews. Dat was de reden van de plotselinge hype.35

Less a complaint than an eloquent cuff on the ear was brought forward by Bouazza, who had been asked, partly by virtue of his hyphenated identity, to write the Book Week Essay of that year. In this essay, entitled Een beer in bontjas (A Bear in a Fur Coat, 2001), Bouazza confronts the dominant – ethnicizing and exoticizing – reception of “migrants’ literature” in a forcefully ironic way. His 35

Het land in mij, ed. Naima El Bezaz, Amsterdam: Arena, 2001, 11: “ Soon I realized that all the attention did not so much concern my talent for writing, but rather my personal background. Moroccan and second generation, that was what the interviews were about. This was the ground for the sudden hype.”

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essay opens with the retelling of a fable about the titular bear in a fur coat. The first-person author-narrator explains the symbolic meaning of this fable: Wat het verhaal zo mooi duidelijk maakt, is dat identiteit geen kwestie van keuze is maar van overheersing. Als ik de meeste critici mag geloven, dan ben ik een Marokkaanse schrijver. Maar ik geloof de meeste critici niet.36

Although the author-narrator here immediately positions himself in opposition to the common opinion that defines his authorship as Moroccan, he nevertheless continues with an elaboration on his biographical background in order to satisfy the exoticist desires of his readership. However, the poetical reflections he adds to this quasibiographical story give the essay its oppositional impact. In a strongly ironic and at times sceptical mode, he argues against too strong beliefs in the social referentiality of literature: Achter elke palmboom in hun werk vermoedt men wel een oase van heimwee, elk tapijt wordt ervan verdacht een vliegend vehikel te zijn. En wanneer een schrijver zijn verhaal elders situeert, dan wordt dat gezien als een krampachtige afwijking van de norm en zal er nog krampachtiger gezocht worden naar exotische sporen in deze nieuwe, maar voor de auteur vertrouwde omgeving (Vind Wat De Veertig Rovers Hebben Verborgen) – en uiteraard worden die gevonden, waarbij de krampachtigheid ondertussen in verstijving is overgegaan, een ware rigor mortis. 37

36 Hafid Bouazza, Een beer in bontjas, Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2001, 9: “ What the story clarifies in such a beautiful way is that identity is not a question of choice but of dominance. According to the opinion of most critics I am a Moroccan writer. But I do not believe most critics.” This quote is taken from the original 2001 edition of Een beer in bontjas. In 2004, the publishing house Prometheus published a revised and extended edition of the essay. 37 Ibid., 32-33: “An oasis of homesickness is presumed to be behind every palm tree in their work, every carpet is suspected of being a flying vehicle. And when a writer situates his story somewhere else, then this is seen as a spastic deviation of the norm and people will search even more spastically for exotic traces in this new, but for the author familiar, surroundings (Find What The Forty Robbers Have Hidden) – and of course these are found, and in the meantime the spasm has changed into rigidity, a true rigor mortis.”

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In this passage, Bouazza addresses the tendency to substitute the general for the particular in a way that is predetermined by an ethnicizing interpretive frame. Readings within this frame take and mistake any sign in the literary text for a reference to an exotic world of origin. He objects that “Cultural identification is not necessarily the motivation for writers of this kind. At least in the best possible situation it is not.”38 Whereas Bouazza’s passionate “plea for the imagination” and against the biographical fallacy of migrant literature clearly testifies to his irritation about the Dutch literary world, another narrative essay by a writer of migrant background published on the occasion of the National Book Week takes a much more positive stance in respect to the Dutch host country. The import of Fouad Laroui’s Vreemdeling: aangenaam (Stranger: Pleasure, 2001) diverges considerably from that of Bouazza’s essay in that it propagates the Netherlands as a country that allows people, including strangers, to be themselves.39 Laroui develops the argument that being a stranger does not necessarily have to be a tragic experience: “all depends on … what kind of stranger one is forced to be.”40 In the fictionalized story of a search for a place where it is pleasant to be strange, Laroui distinguishes five possible varieties of being strange and connects each of these to a particular geographical space. One of the varieties is being strange in Amsterdam: an experience he describes as very pleasant. He contends that thanks to the once famous Dutch tolerance and liberal attitude, the lack of nationalism – “They don’t want to impose their ‘culture’ to anybody, they almost apologize that they have one” – and the open debate in which criticism is also allowed, it is relatively easy for a stranger to feel at home among the Dutch.41

38 Ibid.: “Culturele identificatie hoeft niet de drijfveer te zijn voor dergelijke schrijvers. In het gunstigste geval niet.” 39 The Dutch title of the essay contains a pun: “aangenaam” is not only a term one uses at the first introduction to someone, but as an adjective it also, literally, means “pleasant”. In the context of the essay the use of the term suggests that being a stranger is pleasant. 40 Fouad Laroui, Vreemdeling: aangenaam, Amsterdam: G.A. van Oorschot, 2001, 4: “Alles hangt af van … wat voor soort vreemdeling je gedwongen wordt te zijn.” 41 Ibid., 38: “Hun ‘culture’ willen ze aan niemand opdringen, ze verontschuldigen zich bijna dat ze er een hebben.”

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Although the two positions differ in their analysis and estimation of the contemporary Dutch situation, they are univocal in their plea for creative freedom and for the liberty to be who you want to be. Both narrative essays argue in favour of self-determination and the right to be different. And both essays – each in its own way – can be considered final symptoms of and contributions to the heightened positively-tuned discursivity of multiculturality in Dutch letters. After the extreme visibility effected by the book week, the public interest in “multicultural literature” waned. The reader was overfed with the theme, as always after a Book Week, but also rather in general the positive interest in multiculturality evaporated. Already in the year previous to the “multicultural” Book Week the public attitude towards Dutch multiculturality had changed dramatically: during the “multicultural drama debate” public opinion shifted from optimistic ideas of a successful and tolerant multicultural future to a more sceptical if not downright negative idea of multicultural (dis)illusion and defeat.42 Half a year after the celebratory multicultural Book Week the terrorist attacks of 9/11 caused a further hardening and polarization of Dutch public discourse. The murder of the populistright politician Pim Fortuyn (by an animal-rights activist) a year later, in May 2002, brought about a national earthquake. The Netherlands ended up in a state of panic and of profound political and multicultural mistrust. The idea of tolerance as a Dutch virtue was replaced by the idea of tolerance as a naʀve form of blindness. A rhetoric of exclusion on ethnic and religious grounds replaced the socio-political project of integration into Dutch society while “retaining their own identity” (“met behoud van eigen identiteit”).43 42 The term “multicultural drama debate” derives from the article of that name the Dutch publicist Paul Scheffer published in the NRC Handelsblad on 29 January 2000. The provocative title of the by-now notorious article immediately set the terms of the debate: multiculturality and drama were grouped in one semantic field. About two weeks later, on 17 February 2000, the influential intellectual Paul Schnabel published an article in another well-respected Dutch newspaper, De Volkskrant, in which he took sides with Scheffer and underlined his warning message. The headline of this article was cast in a similar dramatic vein: “The multicultural society is an illusion.” References to failure, drama, and alarm came to determine the national “multicultural drama debate” that evolved after these publications (Paul Schnabel, “De multiculturele samenleving is een illusie”, De Volkskrant, 17 February 2000). 43 The roots of the relatively liberal Dutch policy on multiculturality (until that time) can be traced back to 1983. In this year the Dutch Parliament agreed on an inclusive

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Seen in this context the “multicultural” Book Week very much figured as the apotheotic grande finale of the extraordinary public interest in writing by the ethnic Other. After the Book Week the marked visibility and overwhelming celebration of Dutch multiculturality in Dutch letters was over. In the preface added to the 2001 reprint of the volume Tussenfiguren, Gert Oostindie suggests this decline of interest in the literary field is, in the end, when it comes to literary quality and serious attention, a good thing. He believes the theme of “writing between the cultures” had almost become too popular. Now, he suggests, is the time and need to scrutinize critically the various cultural transformations in Dutch society that processes of migration and globalization have brought about, without either hyping or marginalizing these. This is also the reason Oostindie emphasizes the very significant difference, in his eyes, between the subtitle of the volume – “writing between the cultures” – and the Book Week theme – “writing between two cultures”. He claims that only the first takes the multiple transformations of several involved cultures into account.44 After the Book Week: politicization and normalization After the Book Week, several of the hyped “ethnic other” writers disappeared silently from the literary scene, while others – Abdelkader Benali, Hafid Bouazza, Naima El Bezaz, Fouad Laroui, and Mustafa Stitou, all of Moroccan origin – continued writing and managed to acquire a certain status as Dutch writers in the course of the following years.45 The fact that renowned literary publishing houses kept on

“minorities policy” known as the minderhedennota that aimed to improve the legal status of ethnic minorities, to diminish their social and economic disadvantage, to fight discrimination and prejudice, and to develop a tolerant multicultural society. A central characteristic of this policy was the idea that ethnic minorities could and should integrate into Dutch society while “retaining their own identity” (“met behoud van eigen identiteit”). 44 Gert Oostindie, “Woord vooraf. Verbannen in de letteren”, in Tussenfiguren. Schrijvers tussen de culturen, no pagination. 45 The dominance of writers of Moroccan background within the literary field of that time is striking. As a group, Moroccan-Dutch writers outnumber writers of other migrant backgrounds by far. Laroui and Nijborg propose a combined institutional and linguistic explanation for this Moroccan-Dutch dominance in their contribution to this volume. For a discussion of Dutchophone literature by writers of Turkish origin, see

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publishing their titles and that their work was awarded several important general literary prizes can be interpreted as indications of their advancing canonization. This does not mean that ethnicity as an issue of discussion completely disappeared, as the uproar about the award of the important Libris Literature Prize to Benali’s novel De langverwachte (The Long-awaited, 2002) in 2003 made clear. Probably more than any other hyphenated writer, Benali has had to defend himself against insinuations of political correctness as determinant criterion in the positive reception of his work. This discussion already started when his debut novel Bruiloft aan zee (Wedding at the Sea, 1996) was nominated for this same Libris Literature Prize in 1997 and reached a climax after Benali’s unexpected victory in 2003. Several critics publicly wondered about the jury’s motives for the selection of Benali’s work.46 They suggested that the selection of “the premature book of an alibi-Abdelkader” had been a socio-political decision: an instance of political correctness in a multicultural society under debate.47 It is not unthinkable that this critique is partly connected to Benali’s outspoken public positioning in the polarized discourse on Dutch multiculturality of that time. Although, like Bouazza, Benali Johan Soenen, “Turkse migrantenauteurs in Nederland en Vlaanderen”, Kunsttijdschrift Vlaanderen, LVIII (2009), 270-75. 46 See Max Pam, “Bergen in het vlakke land”, HP/De Tijd, 25 February 2005; Fleur Speet, “Het wringt en wurgt en dat is zoned”, Het Financieel Dagblad, 10 May 2003; Bart Vanegeren, “Benali: Alibi-Abdelkader”, Humo, 20 May 2003. 47 Vanegeren, “Benali: Alibi-Abdelkader”: “het premature boek van een alibiAbdelkader.” The voices in defence of Benali’s selection did not always support Benali’s literary case. In De Volkskrant the successful and respected Persian-Dutch writer Kader Abdolah enthusiastically claimed the prize as an award for all “allochtoons”. He argued that Benali’s selection implied a general acknowledgement of their presence in Dutch culture. Benali himself responded annoyed to this claim and vehemently resisted its import. Abdolah’s statement seemed to confirm the idea that, more than the literary quality of his novel, Benali’s other ethnic origin had determined his selection. In an interview with Arjan Peters, Benali rejected Abdolah’s assumption by stating that: “Een jury bekroont het beste boek, niet het boek van een prijzenswaardige allochtoon. Mocht die omstandigheid een overweging zijn geweest, dan ben ik alsnog bereid de prijs, inclusief het geld, direct in te leveren” (“A jury awards the best book, not the book of a commendable “allochtoon”. If that condition has been deliberate, then I’m still ready to immediately return the prize, the money inclusive”). (Benali quoted in Arjan Peters, “Ik zeg liever op papier dat man en vrouw gelijk zijn: Zoiets roepen in een moskee werkt niet”, De Morgen, 28 January 2004.)

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has also always fought against his marginalization as a “Moroccan migrant writer” in the literary field, he nevertheless maintains that his position of influence as a writer involves a certain responsibility. Initially he located this responsibility in his literary work that offers comments and reflections on socio-political issues in a specifically literary form. However, at a certain point Benali felt that he could not justify this position outside of the hardening public discourse anymore. His literary interventions seemed too marginal in a time in which the Dutch multicultural society was under vehement attack and Benali decided to intervene more directly by way of essayistic contributions to national newspapers and magazines.48 In this new role, Benali critically strove for mutual understanding and commonality in times of multicultural tension. Benali was not the only writer of migrant background who felt the urge to intervene into the changed public discourse and to vent publicly their worries about the new socio-political situation. Whereas Benali opted for a role as committed Moroccan-Dutch intermediary in the service of intercultural harmony, Bouazza, however, took an almost contrary position. He claimed that his decision to intervene in the debate resulted from the fact that he could no longer accept what he saw as Dutch blindness to Islamic fundamentalism: “Tolerance has turned into stupidity.”49 He wanted to warn the naïve Dutch population against the extremist ideas among a group of Muslim men that threatened the principle of freedom for all. In a combative mode Bouazza stated that he wants to “stand up for the Netherlands”.50

48

One of Benali’s interventions is the article “Waarom zwijgen de Nederlandse schrijvers?” (“Why Do Dutch Writers Keep Silent?”, Vrij Nederland, 14 September 2002, 76 ff.). In this article, Benali reformulates his personal poetics into a general demand for all Dutch writers and propagates the assumption of a responsible position as an obligation for any writer. He assesses an identity crisis in the Netherlands brought about by the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and by the “phenomenon Fortuyn”. Benali blames Dutch writers for their indifference towards the question of “who are we?”, and he wonders about the fact that Dutch writers do not take this identity crisis as an opportunity to re-imagine Dutch national identity. His intervention resulted in an interesting polemic when three “ethnic Dutch” writers chose to respond. 49 Bouazza quoted in Pieter Webeling, “Hafid Bouazza: ‘Ik leef met grote gulzigheid: En ik flirt met de dood’”, Rails (2004), 18: “Tolerantie is verworden tot domheid.” 50 Ibid.: “opkomen voor Nederland.”

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It is interesting that both writers, despite their opposite opinions, took a pertinent position in the debate in order to rescue cherished characteristics and estimated achievements of their Dutch society.51 Both writers performed as Dutch intellectuals who are concerned about the state of their country. As writers, as Dutch writers, they possessed the required cultural capital to be acknowledged by the public as important and legitimate voices within the nationwide debate. At the same time, they both complied with the image of the fully integrated migrant, the “other” that – supposedly – was still welcome in Dutch society. They performed as liberal, emancipated, and secular thinkers, who, moreover, had mastered the Dutch language perfectly. In this sense, they were and are far-removed from the current Dutch “other”, stereotypically imagined as a violently antidemocratic Islamist. This assessment of the increased acceptance of writers of migrant background as Dutch intellectuals corresponds to the findings of recent quantitative research on the significance of ethnicity in literary reviews in the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. The comparative study concludes – on the basis of the evaluation of 127 reviews – that “Between 1995 and 2009 the use of ethnic minority classifications in reviews of Moroccan-Dutch writers has diminished significantly, irrespective of the number of book publications of these writers”.52 In their article “Assimilation into the literary mainstream?”, the researchers Pauwke Berkers, Susanne Janssen, and Marc Verboord describe how in the late 1990s, several writers of a predominantly Moroccan migrant background appeared in the literary field at roughly 51

Their difference of opinion can in fact be considered as a positive sign in respect to the integration of writers of “other” ethnic background into the mainstream: it testifies of dissonance and diversity within the minority group and thus works to disable homogenizing ethnic group-identifications. 52 Pauwke Berkers, Susanne Janssen, and Marc Verboord, “Assimilatie in de literaire mainstream: Etnische grenzen in dagbladrecensies van etnische minderheidsauteurs in de Verenigde Staten, Nederland en Duitsland”, Mens en Maatschappij, LXXXV (2010), 305: “Het gebruik van etnische minderheidslabels in de recensies van Marokkaans-Nederlandse auteurs neemt tussen 1995 en 2009 significant af, los van het aantal boekpublicaties dat deze auteurs op hun naam hebben staan.” The researchers distinguish between the boundary crossing of individual writers throughout their career as a traditional form of assimilation and boundary shifting as a more generally incisive process in which the ethnic boundary itself is negotiated and re-established.

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the same time. At that time, these writers were strongly ethnicized and hardly ever considered as members of the literary mainstream. Almost fifteen years later the situation appears to have changed: Berkers, Janssen, and Verboord conclude that professional readers have got used to writers of minority background.53 Two recent occurrences seem to support this positive conclusion. At the beginning of 2008 the poet Ramsey Nasr, born in the Netherlands and of mixed Dutch-Palestinian descent, was elected by the Dutch public as “dichter des vaderlands” (“poet of the fatherland”), Dutch National Poet, for a term of four years. The fact that his name sounds exotic to traditional Dutch ears was apparently no obstacle to his election for this representative function. One year later, in 2009, Benali was awarded the twentieth E. du Perron Prize for his novel De stem van mijn moeder (My Mother’s Voice, 2009). This occasion might not strike one as a particular sign of integration into the mainstream, especially since, as I discussed earlier, this prize has an explicitly multicultural focus. However, the remarkable aspect lies in the fact that in the account of this decision, the jury contended that this novel “proves that we are past the ‘migrant novel’ now. With this book [Benali] did not write a novel of variegated Netherlands, but a variegated Dutch novel.”54 Whether these two occurrences can really be interpreted as indicative of the full integration of writers of migrant background and 53 Despite this positive development, the academic interest in literature by writers of migrant background still remains rather limited. Aside from one study by Henriëtte Louwerse (Homeless Entertainment: On Hafid Bouazza’s Literary Writing, Bern: Peter Lang, 2007) and another by Minnaard (New Germans, New Dutch), there is little proof of a proportionate representation of literature by writers of migrant backgrounds in academic research of Dutch literature. Also, in volumes on postcolonial Dutch literature, literature of migration generally remains absent. This can be, but is not necessarily linked to a conceptual distinction between literature of migration and postcolonial literature, as the example of the volume Wandelaar onder de palmen: Opstellen over koloniale en postkoloniale literatuur en cultuur, Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij, 2004, eds Michiel van Kempen, Piet Verkruijsse, and Adrienne Zuiderweg, shows. Only one of the volume’s 46 contributions deals with literature of migration. 54 Jury report E. Du Perronprijs 2009: “aantoont dat we de “migranten roman” voorbij zijn. Met dit boek heeft [Benali] niet een roman van een rijk geschakeerd Nederland geschreven, maar een rijk geschakeerde Nederlandse roman” (http://www.uvt.nl/faculteiten/fgw/dtc/duperronprijs/juryrapport/; accessed 1 October 2010).

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their literary work into the literary mainstream, and whether the research mentioned earlier provides solid ground for optimism, still remains to be seen. History teaches us that ethnicity as a marker of difference often regains significance in times of social insecurity and economical crisis. The stunning rise to political power of Geert Wilders’ populist anti-Islam party PVV in the 2010 Elections might well indicate that such times are ahead of us.55 It seems, however, that ethnicity is no longer destined to play only a passive role in processes of Othering. Writers of non-Dutch ethnic origin might well be able to intervene in future debates in their capacity as Dutch writers of nonDutch ethnic origin. In this case, ethnic positioning would rather function as an option than as an attribution: a valuable sign of difference from the ethnicization of the late 1990s.

55

In the current discourse on Dutch multiculturality religion seems to have taken the position of ethnicity as the most influential marker of difference.

“THE NETHERLANDS IS DOING WELL. ALLOCHTOON WRITING TALENT IS BLOSSOMING THERE”: DEFINING FLEMISH LITERATURE, DESIRING “ALLOCHTOON” WRITING SARAH DE MUL

Nederland heeft Hafid Bouazza … Nederland heeft Khalid Boudou .… Nederland heeft Abdelkader Benali … En Nederland heeft een paar mindere goden .… Ja, Nederland doet het goed. Allochtoon schrijftalent bloeit er. En in België? Er is misschien maar één iets dat de Vlaamse boekensector liever zou hebben dan een degelijk boekenprogramma op tv: een handvol allochtone schrijvers.1

With the above passage, the Flemish reviewer and publicist Marc Cloostermans opens an essay in his book De tak waarop wij zitten, in which he tackles the following issue: compared to the range of successful “allochtoon” writers debuting in the neighbouring Netherlands, there were up to that point no “allochtoon” writers emerging on the literary scene in Flanders. Around the turn of the millennium, not only Cloostermans but also various other critics and policymakers were bothered by the mysterious absence of “allochtoon” writers in Flanders. Where were they? Why did not they speak? What was wrong with Flanders that it did not have any? Although these questions were addressed in various ways, it was hard to find individuals who would dispute the assumption that Flanders was in need of “allochtoon” writers. 1

Marc Cloostermans, De tak waarop wij zitten: Berichten uit de boekenbranche, Antwerp: Epo – UNESCO Centrum Vlaanderen, 2006, 71ff.: “The Netherlands has Hafid Bouazza … The Netherlands has Khalid Boudou .… The Netherlands has Abdelkader Benali … And the Netherlands has a few minor Gods.… Yes, the Netherlands is doing well. Allochtoon writing talent is blossoming there. And in Belgium? There is probably only one thing that the Flemish book sector desires more than a high quality book programme on television: a number of allochtoon writers.”

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In this essay, I focus on the generally shared desire for “allochtoon” writings in Flanders, particularly in combination with the incessant reference to the thriving of “allochtoon” writing in the Netherlands. I argue more specifically that this discursive pattern reveals an attempt to define and distinguish Flemish literature from Dutch literature; paradoxically, this is accomplished by duplicating the literary situation in the Netherlands, and attempting to create in Flanders a category of “allochtoon writing” similar to the one existing in Dutch literature.2 Differently put, I suggest that the Flemish literary field is caught in the oxymoron of a Flemish multicultural literature that it posits; on the one hand, the need to assert a singular cultural identity informing Flemish literature and language – particularly in its complex relationship to Dutch literature and language – and on the other hand, the notion that one of the important conditions of possibility for this body of Flemish literature to exist is an openness for cultural difference and diversity. A number of aspects will be addressed. First, I discuss how a cultural paradigm demarcating Flemishness from cultural otherness is at work in socio-political discourses. Subsequently, I focus on how multicultural literature is framed in terms of desiring a category of cultural difference. I discuss more specifically how government policies were issued and initiatives taken to stimulate authors of ethnic minority background to enter the literary field, which were based on a number of, as I argue, problematic assumptions about the notion of culture and multiculturalism. Finally, I examine how the insistence on cultural difference, dominating the government controlled approach to the creation of Flemish multicultural literature, cannot be understood without reference to the longstanding but uneasy relationship between the Netherlands and Flanders, between Dutch and Flemish literature. Exploring this tension and teasing out some of its repercussions, I situate my inquiry against the background of literary criticism of migration literature, particularly in relation to the assumption recently made that migration literature holds the promise of subverting nineteenth-century ideologies of national literature and offers ways of imagining new, transnational forms of community and cross-cultural

2

For elaborations on multiculturality in the Dutch literary field, see Laroui and Nijborg’s, as well as Minnaard’s contributions in this volume.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 125 mobility.3 As I will show, however, literary discourses about migration literature in Flanders suggest that migration literature has served to reassert cultural and national ideas on the basis of which a culturally distinct Flemish literature is defined against other culturally defined collections of texts, be they Dutch or “allochtoon”. I tentatively conclude that assumptions about migration literature’s deconstructing challenge to ideas of language, culture, and nationhood may well be considered premature in the context of weaker national literatures such as Flemish literature, struggling as these literatures today are to assert themselves with, and against, other European literatures on the global literary market. Transitions in “Flemishness” in times of global change Flanders, which once figured as a predominantly rural and impoverished region, has over the past century developed into one of the wealthiest regions of Europe, yet is steeped in a regional nationalism that has propelled the country towards increasing federalization. Throughout these reforms, Flanders developed itself into an autonomous cultural and regional entity that not only distinguishes itself from its French-speaking southern counterpart Wallonia, but also from its northern neighbour, the Netherlands. Moreover, while Flanders was once an emigration region (by the end of the ninteenth century, mostly to France, but also to the US), it gradually developed into an immigration zone, attracting a large part of the current documented and undocumented migrants in the country.4 Despite (or precisely because of) the history of federalization, transnationalism, and immigration, nationalist aspirations and discourses have thrived in Flanders as much as or even more than in other European nation-states. Its status as a political unity within the federal nation-state of Belgium seems to reinforce, 3

Rebecca L.Walkowitz, “The Location of Literature: The Transnational Book and the Migrant Writer”, Contemporary Literature, XLVII/4 (Winter 2006), 527. 4 The immigration flows to Belgium before 1974 were mainly the result of a national immigration policy soliciting low-skilled workers in order to compensate for the labour shortage after the Second World War. Workers were initially recruited from Italy, Spain, and Greece, and in the early 1960s also from Morocco and Turkey. Yet since 1974, a date at which the national labour migration policy was frozen, immigration from non-European countries exclusively occurs through marriage, asylum, or education.

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rather than downplay the importance of nationalist discourses, an assumption informed by the observation that today, ongoing communitarian tensions in the political arena energize nationalist and separatist voices who proclaim their ambition to realize an independent nation-state of Flanders. In the Flemish political arena, the electoral success of the Flemish right and extremist right nationalist parties, such as NVA and Vlaams Belang, indicate a growing popularity of nationalist discourses in the last two decades. New ideas and notions of Flemishness are developing in a context characterized by the increasing regionalization of a Flanders that has increasingly defined itself over the last twenty years as a culturally autonomous, economically self-reliant, homogenous entity.5 These discourses – eclectic as they are in ideological terms – translate social problems between the various communities in Belgium into a cultural vocabulary and inspire new imaginations of the Belgian nation-state, such as confederalism. They make older national imaginations of Belgium seem obsolete and inform apocalyptic visions predicting the breakdown of the entire country. Since the existence of the Belgian nation-state, the Flemish Movement has successively demanded cultural, political, and economic rights, and, in the process, transformed from an elitist movement to a broadly supported popular movement that has redefined the notion of “Flemish culture”.6 Today, the Flemish demand for more economic autonomy is no longer only supported by supporters of the classical Flemish Movement – such as the Flanders Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VOKA) – but by all major political parties in Flanders, by public intellectuals who define themselves as progressive (for example, De Gravensteengroup) and by 5

See also K. Arnaut, S. Bracke, B. Ceuppens, S. De Mul, N. Fadil, and M. Kamaz, Een leeuw in een kooi: De grenzen van het multiculturele Vlaanderen, Antwerp: Meulenhoff-Manteau, 2009, 16. This line of argument is developed by Bami Ceuppens in her research on nationalism and autochthonism in the Flemish context (Congo Made in Flanders? Koloniale Vlaamse visies op “blank” en “zwart”, Ghent: Academia Press, 2003; “Allochthons, Colonizers, and Scroungers: Exclusionary Populism in Belgium”, African Studies Review, XLIX/2 (September 2006), 147-86; “Plus que ça change, plus que ça resta la meme chose? From Flemish Nationalism to Flemish Autochtony”, Social Anthropology, forthcoming). 6 Arnaut et al., Een leeuw in een kooi, 16.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 127 members of elitist organizations (for example, De Warande). An important reason why economic demands supporting notions of Flemishness are so widely supported, as Bambi Ceuppens has noted, may be explained by the notion of “welfare chauvinism”, coined by Kitschelt and McGann.7 The latter refers to the idea that the state guarantees that its social policies work to benefit one’s “own people” and one’s own nation, and not “foreigners”. In these terms, the question becomes: how could Flemish people preserve their claim to the welfare state, given that the welfare state is increasingly under pressure in a global market economy marked by international migration, the international outsourcing of labour, and the ageing of the population?8 While nineteenth-century nation-states defended the civil rights of their subjects against foreigners on the basis of ethnic identity, today regions such as Flanders draw a distinction between “allochtoon” and “autochtoon”, where “autochtoon” rights to claim cultural identity are prioritized over the rights of all other inhabitants of the same location. In the process, juridical definitions of citizenship are replaced by cultural ones. Cultural distinctions between “autochtoons” and “allochtoons” are invoked to preserve the rights of those “who came first” at the expense of “foreigners”. The deployment of cultural vocabularies and frameworks is by no means an entirely new phenomenon, nor does it pertain to Flanders exclusively.9 But the culturalist framework of identity and difference 7

Ceuppens, “Allochthons, Colonizers, and Scroungers”, 147; Arnaut et al., Een leeuw in een kooi, 16. 8 Arnaut et al., Een leeuw in een kooi, 16. 9 Scholars have documented the emergence and development of culturalist paradigms in the post-Cold War era by means of which ontological differences between cultures are posited and social events and conflicts between states and regions are understood as civilization or “cultural clashes” (Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations”, Foreign Affairs, LXXII/3 [1993], 22-50). Culturalist frameworks draw on older Orientalist traditions – especially towards Islam – in which a range of overlapping categories – colonized peoples, foreigners, non-native speakers, refugees, “allochtoons” – are imagined as “others”, while culture is considered the basis of irreconcilable differences distinguishing these others from Westerners. In the process, the culture of these “others” is almost self-evidently attributed the ontological status of a stable, innate race and is associated with a series of pejorative connotations marking difference and inferiority. At the heart of culturalist narratives, then, are two related processes: an increasing inferiorization or abnormalization of others and, also,

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translates itself in specific ways in the Flemish region, where cultural

definitions of Flemishness are continuously made, remade, and contested with reference and by contrast to a series of cultural others: the French-speaking southern counterpart Wallonia, the northern neighbouring country of the Netherlands, and ethnic minority populations within the Flemish region. In so doing, discourses of Flemish cultural and national identity often draw on a series of past experiences and memories that conjure meanings ranging between the opposite poles of supremacy and suppression. On the one side of the spectrum, one finds expressions of Flemish cultural identity that are taking shape in relation to older, national-romantic mythologies supporting the emancipation of Flemish language and culture. Such notions of Flemishness were primarily blossoming during and in between the World Wars, and have carried along with them dark memories of Flemish collaboration with German Nazism. Today they also manifest themselves most clearly in the recent history of Flemish racism and the exclusionary imagination of Flanders in terms of whiteness distributed by extremist nationalist parties such as Vlaams Belang in the political arena. On the other side, there are cultural expressions of Flemishness drawing on collective memories and sentiments of subjugation, which can be retraced to a nineteenth- and early twentieth-century legacy of struggle for the recognition of Flemish language and cultural identity against the Belgian political elite, who were predominantly Francophone. Notwithstanding that today the Flemish language and culture could hardly be considered “subaltern”, older feelings and memories of Flemish minoritarianism continue providing emotional material for the construction of Flemish subalternity.10 As the an appeal to protect and defend the customs and values of one’s own culture. The apocalyptic pathos characterizing discourses of cultural otherness feed utopian expectations about one’s own culture and vice versa. See also the introduction to this volume. 10 Since at least the second part of the twentieth century, however, the status and reality of the Flemish language and region have considerably changed alongside successive state reforms that have granted an increasing degree of self-determination to the Flemish region, including policies of language rights. Apart from being Belgium’s most prosperous economic region, Flanders is now also the largest of the three official language communities and consists of approximately six million native speakers.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 129 columnist Mia Doornaert points out, despite the fact that Flanders can hardly be considered a minority culture in Belgium, dominant selfdefinitions imagine Flemish culture not as a self-assured majority, but as an “incurable minority with complexes”.11 Another observer describes Belgium as “the only state in the world where different oppressed majorities coexist, each with a claim of superiority over the other but all suffering from a sense of inferiority”.12 As we will see in what follows, the Dutch language, literature, and literary culture of the Netherlands prove to be important points of reference and indeed complicate definitions of Flemish cultural identity in terms of subalternity. As a realm where ideas and discourses of cultural identity are shaped, remodelled, and contested, literature has historically played an important role in the search for expressions of Flemish cultural identity. Inventing a glorious mythological past for Flanders, the nineteenth-century literary tradition of historical novels, such as Hendrik Conscience’s De leeuw van Vlaanderen (The Lion of Flanders), illustrate this point clearly. In what follows, I examine how notions of Flemish cultural identity are defined and manifest themselves in literary discussions about migration literature. Towards a Flemish multicultural literature When compared to the Netherlands, Germany, and France, where a growing number of texts written by authors from ethnic minority backgrounds had been published, for some years Flanders had to accept that there was no comparable trend visible in Flanders. “Allochtoon” writing, hence, has often been framed as a lack in Flanders, as an abnormal absence in need of clarification, and a problem that required solving.13 In what follows, I will discuss how the non-existence, rather than the emergence, of migrant writing in Flanders prompted government intervention and subsidy policies aimed at the publication and promotion of these texts. Exploring in particular the focus on authors of ethnic minority backgrounds in these 11

Mia Doornaert, “Wrokkige Vlamingen”, De Standaard, 14 September 2009. Pierre Wigny, trans., in Ceuppens, “Allochthons, Colonizers, and Scroungers”, 149. 13 Gaettens makes a similar observation in the Danish literary context; see the essay “New Voices – Most Wanted: The Search for a Danish Multicultural Literature” in this volume. 12

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subsidy policies, I argue that attempts to render Flemish literature multicultural are supported by a desire for a category of “allochtoon literature”. The latter is problematic not least since the requirement of this category partly seems to fulfil the wish that a Flemish body of literature stands comparison with other European literature, particularly the literature of the Netherlands. In 2000, then-Flemish Minister of Culture Bert Anciaux announced that diversity and intercultural relations would be among the main issues addressed by his cultural policy programme, and this remained so during the two successive terms of his tenure. Anciaux formulated his rationale for doing so as follows: Nieuwe inwoners van Vlaanderen moeten kansen op emancipatie krijgen. Zij moeten kunnen deel hebben aan de diversiteit van het cultuurgebeuren, zij moeten er een vanzelfsprekende plaats in opnemen. Dan komen er even evident nieuwe culturele uitingsvormen tot stand, die een wezenlijke verrijking vormen voor de Vlaamse samenleving.14

This passage illustrates “a politics of recognition” in Charles Taylor’s sense of the term, by means of which Taylor referred to the question of whether the institutions of liberal democratic government can make room – or should make room – for recognizing the worth of distinctive cultural traditions.15 According to this logic, efforts should be made to support ethnic minorities to enter the cultural scene in Flanders from which they are by and large absent so that their presence could become considered self-evident. The latter social objective – emancipating ethnic minorities – is subsequently connected to a cultural advantage for Flemish society; it is hoped that the participation of ethnic minorities in the cultural domain will stimulate cultural innovation and “enrich” Flemish society. The verb verrijken – 14

Bert Anciaux, “Beleidsnota: Cultuur 1999-2004”, CXLIX/1 (12 January 2000), Flemish Parliament, 30: “New inhabitants of Flanders should have opportunities for emancipation. They should be able to participate in the diversity of the cultural scene, where they should take up a natural position. Then new cultural expression forms will emerge in an equally self-evident fashion, which will fundamentally enrich Flemish society.” (Unless stated otherwise, this, and all further translations of quotations, are mine.) 15 Charles Taylor et al., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 131 “to enrich” or “to make rich” – metaphorically denotes “to supplement” while it may also invoke an economic register of benefit. Anciaux’s policy programme has been translated into practice by the government-subsidized Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren (Flemish Literary Fund), which stipulated a “intercultureel letterenbeleid” (“intercultural literature programme”). The intercultural literature programme aims to improve contacts between the Flemish literary world and authors living in Flanders who did not learn Dutch as their first language. One of the principal objectives of this programme is to facilitate access to the literary field for debuting authors of ethnic minority descent. Though it nowadays exists in a different format, the literary writing contest “Colour the Arts”, organized by the non-profit organization KifKif with financial support from the Flemish local government, is one of the most acclaimed and arguably most successful initiatives launched to achieve this purpose. For various authors and artists – Kenan Serbest, Jamal Boukriss, Sadie Choua, or Rachida Lamrabet – this contest proved to be one of the entry points in the literary and cultural field; though, it should be added that many of these individuals were, in addition to their participation, also occupied in other activities that contributed to their increasingly wider audiences. For instance, Sadie Choua won the literature contest in 2004, but she released her widely acclaimed and awarded documentary Mijn zus Zahra (My Sister Zahra) in 2006. Through the organization of literary master classes, workshops, and information sessions, ethnic minorities are also invited to attend introductions to the literary publishing world and to apply for creative writing courses. For instance, in the workshop “Vreemd in het schrijven” (“foreign in/to writing”), organized by Passa Porta, an international literary centre in Brussels, debuting young talents were guided towards publication under the auspice of distinguished Flemish authors like Kristien Hemmerechts, Stefan Hertmans, and Peter Verhelst. The effects of these workshops on authors of ethnic minority descent making their debut are difficult to estimate, as debuting always depends on a range of factors. Both Mustafa Kör, who published his first novel, De lammeren, in 2007, and Rachida Lamrabet, whose first novel, Vrouwland, came out in the same year,

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participated in this workshop. “Vreemd in het schrijven” has now discontinued, though other cultural organizations offer similar creative writing courses and projects specifically (though not always exclusively) aimed at an audience of aspiring writers from ethnic minorities. Underlying the focus on authors from ethnic minorities and their access to the literary field are a number of assumptions that reconfirm cultural divisions between “allochtoons” and “authochtons”, which permeate public discussions on multiculturalism where they serve to reinforce the exclusion of ethnic minorities from the Flemish imagination. First, a connection between writing and cultural identity is established, which in effect acculturates the writings of authors from ethnic minority descent. Access to the literary field of the individuals targeted in these policies is made to depend on their cultural and linguistic background. It is precisely this point that Jamila Amadou criticizes in the newspaper column entitled “Wij spreken pas als jullie luisteren” (“We will only speak if you listen”).16 Amadou argues that since the only position in the Flemish literary field available for “allochtoon” writers is to be a spokesperson for his or her cultural community, migrant writers have been absent from the literary field. They do not wish to speak if they can only do so because of their representative function, and choose to remain silent if there is no audience available that is really prepared to listen to them. Regardless of whether what is at stake here is, as Amadou claims, really a voluntary self-silencing mechanism among aspiring authors, her assumption that Flemish audiences may not hear, or may not be prepared to listen to, literary voices that fall beyond a specific stereotypical understanding of what an “allochtoon” literary voice precisely must sound like, resonates with Gayatri Spivak’s contention that the subaltern cannot speak. The literary scholar Tom Van Imschoot similarly observes that “the text of an allochtoon writer, … even if he writes about the autochthoon majority, stands for the

16

Jamila Amadou, “Wij spreken pas als jullie luisteren”, De Standaard, 13 October 2004.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 133 minority perspective and as such may or may not enrich Flemish literature …”.17 A second issue that deserves critical scrutiny is the notion of culture deployed. Since opportunities for debuting authors are made to depend on their cultural background, it is suggested that it is very clear what an individual’s culture is, or should be. Cultures are considered to be static and homogenous entities that can be neatly put side by side as with a mosaic or patchwork. According to this logic, the result of this series of cultures will subsequently be called “diversity” or “multiculturalism”.18 This view ignores, however, the dynamic nature of cultures, characterized as these inherently are by contradictions, ambivalences, and internal differences of class, gender, religion, age, ideology, and so on. Moreover, the focus on debuting authors from ethnic minority cultures reveals that two different notions of culture are being deployed. Culture is something that sticks to writers of ethnic minority descent, but not to “autochthoon” writers. The former are supposed to have cultural attachments; they represent a cultural tradition by means of which they could enrich the diversity of the Flemish cultural scene; they are, in other words, culturally specific. This notion of culture is subsequently defined in opposition to a notion of “Flemish culture”, which symbolizes universal and collectively shared customs and traditions, and which is not considered as a culturally specific feature characterizing “autochthoon” writers and their work. A final point relevant to our discussion is that by focusing on writers from ethnic minority backgrounds, the burden of multicultural literature in Flanders rests on the shoulders of under-represented target groups. Policymakers are indeed situated in the institutional positions from which they are entitled to specify the ways in which the underrepresented group should render Flemish literature “multicultural”. At the same time, however, they remain alleviated from all 17 Tom Van Imschoot, “Naar een Vlaamse minderheidsliteratuur?”, Rekto Verso, XXXIII (January-February 2009): http://www.rektoverso.be/artikel/naar-een-vlaamseminderheidsliteratuur (accessed 13 June 2012): “als de tekst van een allochtoon, die zelfs wanneer hij over de autochtone meerderheid schrijft voor de blik van een minderheid staat, én die als dusdanig de Vlaamse literatuur al dan niet verrijkt, afhankelijk van het kritische oordeel.” 18 For a similar critique of diversity but in the Swedish context, see Magnus Nilsson’s contribution in this volume.

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responsibility in rendering the Flemish literary field more inclusive. Debuting authors, from this perspective, receive a task. Whether or not they achieve it, is made to depend not on anything or anyone except themselves, their individual talent, and eventually their degree of success in gaining access to the literary field. In the process, some very clear ideas are imposed upon ethnic minorities, particularly about how their emancipation should develop; for example, whether they should acquire knowledge about the literary field through infosessions, or they should improve their writing skills in Dutch. It is worthwhile mentioning in this respect that policymakers and publishers – a group by and large composed of white males – hold institutional authority over under-represented groups of potential ethnic minority authors for whom they set an agenda for emancipation. The form of identity politics interwoven in the intercultural literature programme, then, is imposed from above.19 Whereas the distinct cultural background of debuting authors is called upon in efforts to create a Flemish literature that is multicultural by composition, the preservation of Flemish cultural identity, as I will suggest in the next section, is strategically invoked to secure the diversity of Dutchophone literatures. Whereas in the latter case, however, the right to claim one’s own cultural particularity is demanded by various actors of the Flemish literary field themselves, in the former case, the cultural particularity of debuting authors is forced upon them by the literary establishment. As a result, divisions between “autochtoons” and “allochtoons” informing dominant imaginations of Flanders in the socio-political field can also be perpetuated in the literary field.

19

The term “identity politics” finds its roots in the Anglo-Saxon context, where it is often used as a generic term denoting the political mobilization of minorities: feminists, homosexuals, or ethnic minorities. In the Belgian and Flemish contexts, immigrant populations have increasingly mobilized themselves to express their culturally distinct concerns and preoccupations in the public domain. In so doing, they claim space and demand the right to express their cultural identity, a possibility which many of them perceive to be denied to them due to the imposition to integrate or assimilate into mainstream Flemish culture. See Arnaut et al., Een leeuw in een kooi, 111-29.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 135 Desiring migration literature, constructing Flemish literature In the previous section, I discussed how the assumption that Flanders for a long time lacked migration literature has framed the discussions and state interventions in terms of the desirability of a particular form of literature defined by cultural difference. The reasons why this literature is sought after are most of the time unsaid, as if they are assumed to be self-evident, but this makes it all the more striking that the lack of migration literature has been insistently connected and contrasted to its steady growth in other European countries, particularly in the Netherlands, where migration literature has burgeoned exponentially since the late 1990s. Taking as a starting point that the Netherlands is such an important reference point, in this section I argue that discussions about migration literature in Flanders can be seen as instances that reveal a desire to demarcate the literature and literary field in Flanders as an autonomous entity vis-à-vis Dutch literature. I will do this by focusing on the difficult relationship between Flemish and Dutch literature and literary fields. In particular, I discuss how the cultural paradigm is invoked to assert the autonomous status of Flemish literature and the literary field as compared with the literature and the literary field of the Netherlands. As we have seen earlier, this very same cultural paradigm is also drawn upon in the creation and stimulation of a Flemish multicultural literature. In order to understand the significance of references and comparisons to Dutch migration literature, such as those already cited, it is useful to consider the historical affiliations and linguistic connections that form important factors in the intense, yet complex, cultural relationships that have existed for centuries between Flanders and the Netherlands. Today, busy cultural traffic crosses the borders between Flanders and the Netherlands, from the import and export of cultural products and other forms of crossover, exchange, and cooperation between cultural institutions and producers. Flanders and the Netherlands have also historically been each other’s priority partners in international policy programmes. Collaborations and initiatives are undoubtedly fostered by the idea that Flanders and the Netherlands share an important historical heritage, culture, and language. In 1995, the Dutch and Flemish governments signed a cultural treaty (Cultureel Verdrag Vlaanderen-

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Nederland) regulating collaboration in the fields of culture, education, and welfare. The Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union) was formed in 1980 to institutionalize and stimulate cooperation between the Netherlands, Flanders, and the Dutch-speaking former colony of Suriname in the domains of language and literature. Under the flag “One language, three countries”, the Dutch Language Union declared its intention to stipulate agreements and policies aimed at the integration of the Dutchophone languages and literatures of these countries, for example a common literary policy for Flanders and the Netherlands.20 The latter objective is supported by the fact that due to the common language and the economic integration of a number of literary publishing houses the literary production, distribution and book markets in the Netherlands and Flanders are already interwoven. However, despite, or precisely because of, the close linguistic and cultural affiliations and economic collaborations in the domain of literature, the relationship between Flanders and the Netherlands is not – nor has ever been – without a range of sensitivities, difficulties, and ambiguities. The “integration model” endorsed by the Dutch Language Union has so far not fully been realized. Some critics have rejected the integration model because it bears the undesired legacy of the Greater Netherlandism ideology, a mode of thought that aspires for the unification of the Netherlands and Flanders as a singular political state, and which was primarily popular among extreme right fascist organizations in both the Netherlands and Belgium during the Second World War. Further, expressing their objections, critics of “the integration model” borrow extensively from the vocabulary of multiculturalism. For instance, in the year report of the Flemish Literary Fund, it is stated: De systematische integratie van het Nederlandse en Vlaamse letterenbeleid is een te verregaande optie. Een maximale samenwerking met aandacht en respect voor ieders eigenheid is een meer realistische benadering. De samenwerking met beide Nederlandse 20

”Cultuur: Bilaterale samenwerking tussen Nederland en Vlaanderen”, 1 August 2010: http://www.benelux.int/nl/almanak/07-08-01_almanak.asp (accessed 13 June 2012): “Het Verdrag inzake de Nederlandse Taalunie (1980) heeft tot doel ‘de integratie van Nederland en de Nederlandse gemeenschap in België op het gebied van de Nederlandse taal en letteren in de ruimste zin’.”

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 137 Fondsen op basis van gelijkwaardigheid waarborgt deze eenheid in verscheidenheid.21

Criticism of “the integration model” expressed in this passage clearly recalls familiar objections raised against the notion of “integration” in debates about multiculturalism. Here, if integration means the movement of Flemish language and literature into the Dutch mainstream so as to gain full access to the opportunities and rights available, then integration poses a threat to the cultural identity of the Flemish language and literature. If integration implies that the dominant language and literature of the Netherlands is homogenized, then the cultural particularities of the literature, language, and literary culture in Flanders require safeguarding. Instead of integration, “respect for each other’s identity” and “equality” is required for the two literary fields to thrive independently and collaborate fruitfully. Relatively young compared to its Dutch counterpart, the Flemish Literary Fund was established in 1999 and is itself suggestive of a broader movement towards professionalization of the Flemish literary field in the last fifteen years. It is a state-subsidized body that promotes, stimulates, and financially supports “Dutchophone literature in Belgium and abroad so as to improve the socio-economic position of Flemish authors and translators”.22 In light of the latter emancipatory objective, one could understand the objections raised against the integration model: “… integration of the Dutch and Flemish literary policies would obstruct diversity and the autonomous opportunity for development.”23 21

Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren, “Jaarverslag 2002”, 48: http://www.vfl.be/ _uploads/Downloads/downloads/VFL_JAARVERSLAG_2002.pdf (accessed 2 May 2011): “The systematic integration of the Dutch and Flemish literary policy is one bridge too far. Maximal collaboration with attention and respect for each other’s identity is a more realistic approach. The collaboration between both Dutchophone funds on the basis of equality guarantees unity in diversity.” 22 “Over Het VFL”: http://www.fondsvoordeletteren.be/nl/1/ content/141/over-hetvfl.html (accessed 2 May 2011): “Het VFL steunt de Nederlandstalige letteren en de vertaling in en uit het Nederlands van literair werk in de brede zin van het woord. Op die manier helpt het de sociaaleconomische positie van Vlaamse auteurs en vertalers te verbeteren.” 23 Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren, “Jaarverslag 2005”, 125: http://www.vfl.be/_uploads/Downloads/downloads/ VFL_JAARVERSLAG_2005.pdf (accessed 2 May 2011): “… een integratie van het Nederlandse en Vlaamse

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The perceived threat of Flemish cultural identity, language, and literature is undoubtedly informed by older notions of Flanders as an annex of the Netherlands and the Flemish language as a somewhat incorrect, inferior form of the Dutch language. As Kevin Absillis recently noted, older perceptions of Flemish provincialism, narrowmindedness, and backwardness associated with the marginal position of Flanders compared with the Netherlands are very much alive and are still hampering the credibility of Flemish publishers in their attempt to publish fiction.24 Despite the increasing professionalization of the Flemish literary field, however, the perception generally remains that the epicentre of literary activity today is located in Amsterdam, as it used to be in the past. The largest number of Flemish authors are affiliated with Dutch – not Flemish – publishing houses; more Dutch books are imported and read in Flanders than Flemish books are imported to the Netherlands; most foreign-language books are translated by Dutch, not Flemish, translators. Consequently, the question of a space in which Flemish literature and the literary field could develop autonomously is clearly at the core of discussions, and cultural paradigms are invoked to secure this space. Some critics indeed contend that underlying the integration model is the misconception that the shared Dutch language in the Netherlands and Flanders would naturally produce a shared culture and literature. As Inez Boogaerts puts it: “Commonality in language does not imply a shared cultural consciousness.”25 In the terms of Flemish publisher Harold Polis:

letterenbeleid op korte termijn [zal] remmend zou kunnen zijn voor de diversiteit en voor ieders autonome ontwikkelingskansen.” 24 Kevin Absillis, “Vlaamse uitgevers en hun gevecht tegen de bierkaai”, Apache, 1 March 2010. The Flemish author and intellectual Tom Naegels described Flanders as “an amputated periphery” to the Netherlands, suggesting that older imbalances have continued to define the cultural relationships between Flanders and the Netherlands, while at the same time the Flemish literary field has grown further away from the centre. Naegels criticizes in particular that the Flemish have lost touch with Dutch literature due to the increasing autonomous status of Flemish literary field which has made it also increasingly provincial (Tom Naegels, “Vlaanderen is een geamputeerde periferie: We kennen de Nederlandse literatuur niet meer”, De Standaard, 10 March 2010). 25 Inez Boogaerts, “‘Voor mij zeede gij ongelooflik schoon’: Een lange traditie van aantrekken en afstoten in the Lage Landen”, Boekman, XVIII/67 (Summer 2006), 12.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 139 The existence of a Dutchophone literature does not mean that there is not such a thing as a Dutch and Flemish literature …. Flanders and the Netherlands function very differently as nations, as societies, as cultures .… Their book markets and reading cultures are no exception to this.26

The cultural paradigm, then, manifests itself not only in discussions about multicultural literature but also in discussions about the relationship between Dutch and Flemish literature. Opportunities for actors and authors of the Flemish literary field are made to depend on cultural difference, in a way that recalls the Flemish Literary Fund’s focus on the ethnic minority background of debuting authors. Intercultural policies tend to consider Flemishness as a general and self-evident notion of culture in contrast to a particular notion of cultural identity on the basis of which the emancipation of authors of minority decent is supposed to be realized and migration literature is promoted. In discussions of the relationship between Flemish and Dutch literature and literary policy, however, Flemishness, in turn, is understood and emphasized as a particular notion of cultural identity. The latter is strategically fruitful for arguments against the integration model, which emphasize that Flemish cultural distinctiveness needs to be preserved in order to secure the diversity of Dutchophone literatures. The assumption that diversity is realized through an emphasis on cultural identity resonates in the focus of intercultural policies, focused as these are on the cultural distinctiveness of authors of ethnic minority descent. In this context, however, discourses of cultural identity lead to considerably different effects. The visible emphasis on the cultural distinctiveness of “allochtoon” writers relies upon implicit contrasts between these authors and “autochtoon” Flemish authors, marking their writings with an exotic otherness that serves to define Flemish literature negatively. Apart from the discourse of achieving diversity through emphasizing cultural particularity, discussions about migration literature intersect with discussions about the relationship between 26

Harold Polis, “Het wederzijds huwelijksbedrog”, Boekman, XVIII/67 (Summer 2006), 24-25: “Het bestaan van een Nederlandstalige literatuur betekent niet dat er geen Nederlandse én een Vlaamse literatuur zou zijn …. Vlaanderen en Nederland functioneren heel anders, als land, als maatschappij, als cultuur …. De boekenbranche en de leescultuur vormen geen uitzondering.”

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Flemish and Dutch literature in yet another way. The frequently cited lack and desirability of migration literature in Flanders, especially in comparisons to Dutch literature, harbours the desire that Flemish literature should not lag behind Dutch literature. From this perspective, the desirability of migration literature is a yearning for a literature in Flanders in its own right, which is at once multicultural and culturally distinct from Dutch literature. If only Flemish literature were multicultural, it could stand the comparison with Dutch literature and achieve equal status. From this perspective, where Flemish cultural identity is invoked as a requirement to secure the diversity of Dutchophone literatures and languages, cultural diversity becomes a condition on the basis of which Flemish cultural identity confirms its existence. Migration literature in Flanders: outlining a recent phenomenon The emergence of, and interest in, migration literature is a phenomenon that has occurred in various Western European literatures, but probably nowhere more recent than in the Flemish region. Usually (albeit reductively) collected under the container label “allochtoon" writing, the literature written by ethnic minority authors approximately has emerged on the Flemish literary scene in the last decade. In what follows, I will present a short overview of the most important authors and texts involved in this recent trend without, however, pretending to render an exhaustive list. The first publications that came into print were predominantly written in non-fiction genres. This seems natural, given that many of these are authored by individuals who had already made acclaim as politicians, public intellectuals, or newspaper columnists. In 2002, the socialist (now turned liberal democrat) politician Mimount Bousakla published Couscous met frieten (Couscous and Fries), a collection of columns, initially published in the newspaper De Morgen, about multicultural topics such as racism, the practice of arranged marriage, Moroccan folklore, and eating customs. Another publication that presents a critical vision of multicultural policy is De smaak van de ongelijkheid (The Taste of Inequality), published in 2004 by the philosopher and socialist politician Tarik Fraihi. It is Fraihi’s attempt to enter the public discussion about integration, tolerance,

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 141 emancipation, and diversity, a debate from which, as Fraihi says, “allochtoon” voices had been absent. In 2003, the Arab political activist Dyab Abou Jahjah published Tussen twee werelden: De roots van een vrijheidsstrijd (Between Two Worlds: The Roots of a Freedom Fight). Written as an autobiography, this book integrates Jahjah’s personal life story into the history of the Lebanese wars, the Israeli invasion of 1982, and European immigration policy. Jahjah, who sought asylum from Lebanon in Belgium, is the founder and former leader of the Arab European League (AEL), a Pan-Arab movement that supports the interests of Muslim immigrants in Europe but is mainly active in Flanders, and to a lesser extent in the Netherlands. The acclaim of Between Two Worlds is undoubtedly informed by the public controversy that arose around its author in 2002, when Jahjah was arrested and detained under suspicion of inciting violent street riots, charges of which he was acquitted in 2008.27 Although Jahjah announced his return to his native country in 2006, he continues to publish non-fiction works in Dutch. Dagboek Beiroet Brussel (Diary Beirut Brussels), the romanticized account of Jahjah’s personal journey to Lebanon during the events of the war in July and August 2006, was published in 2007 by the Antwerp-based publishing house Meulenhoff-Manteau. In addition to these non-fiction works, the recent stream of literature of migration in Flanders has so far been strikingly dominated by female authors of Muslim descent. Het boek Saida (The Saida Book, 2005) is composed and promoted as a joint venture by Tom Naegels, a young male Flemish writer, and Saida Boudjaine, a young woman from Moroccan descent on whose autobiographical life narrative Het boek Saida is based. Narrating the experiences of a Moroccan family in Belgium, the book focuses on the life story of Saida, a girl forced into an unhappy arranged marriage by her family, who eventually succeeds in mobilizing this very same family into ending this marriage. Two young women from Moroccan descent, Naima Albdiouni and Jamila Amadou, started off as newspaper columnists but moved on to 27

For a more detailed analysis of AEL-discourse as Arab identity politics and its representation in the Flemish public domain, see Sarah De Mul, “Oproerkraaiers in het culturele landschap: De AEL en de identiteitspolitiek voor etnische minderheden in Vlaanderen”, Freespace Nieuwzuid, X (2003), 60-75.

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enter the domain of fiction. Together with the work of renowned authors such as Tom Lanoye and Jef Geeraerts, Albdiouni’s fiction debut appeared in an anthology of short stories entitled Gelezen en goedgekeurd. Nieuwe verhalen van Vlaamse schrijvers (Read and Approved: New Narratives by Flemish Writers). Amadou’s short story “De ijzeren vogel” appeared in the anthology of creative writings entitled KifKif: Nieuwe stemmen uit Vlaanderen.28 The latter volume collects narratives and poetry by young authors of ethnic minority backgrounds, many of whom, for example Sadie Choua, Ali Wauters, and Kenan Serbest, were nominees in the literary writing contest “Colour the Arts” organized by the Flemish Community and KifKif. As an after-effect of the literary writing contest, then, the anthology is arguably one of the most direct and widely acclaimed effects of the intercultural literature policy. In the subtitles of both these anthologies, the emphasis put on the Flemishness or the Flemish location of the authors whose work is collected is significant in a double sense. There is first of all a clear ideological statement involved in the notion that there exists such a thing as a culturally or geographically defined category of “Flemish writers” or “voices from Flanders”, whose work can be collected and anthologized. The reification of this category is all the more suggestive when seen in light of the fact that ongoing arguments are being made (and rejected) which aim at shaping a particular collective identity construction by means of which the literature written in Flanders or by authors living in Flanders can affirm its existence. Moreover, by stressing the Flemishness or Flemish location of the writers, the subtitles harbour a critique of the exoticizing label of the “allochtoon” author and present an inclusive vision of a Flemish multicultural literature, which covers “autochtoon” writers as well as writers from Moroccan descent, such as Naima Albdiouni and Jamila Amadou. As a clear attempt to define a collection of texts by an 28

Gelezen en goedgekeurd: Nieuwe verhalen van Vlaamse schrijvers. Antwerp/ Amsterdam: Meulenhoff-Manteau, 2005; KifKif: Nieuwe stemmen uit Vlaanderen. Antwerp/Amsterdam: Meulenhoff-Manteau, 2006. The Antwerp based publisher of the two anthologies, Meulenhoff-Manteau, has also published works by Amadou and Albdouni mentioned earlier. It has had a remarkable share in the publication of the texts mentioned here and more generally also in fiction in Flanders and the proliferation of “allochtoon” writings.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 143 inclusive notion of cultural or geographical identity, the Flemishness to which these anthology titles refer is at the core of my argument. In addition to these anthologies, a number of authors started publishing fiction individually. The first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin is entitled De Feniks (The Phoenix) by the author of Nigerian descent Chika Unigwe. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Vrouw & Kultuurprijs for best first novel by a woman. The story, set in the Belgian city of Turnhout, explores themes such as grief, illness, and loneliness. By featuring a central character who shares the novelist’s Afro-European background, the narrative also exposes some shortcomings of Belgian society, such as its pervasive unwelcoming atmosphere and the superficiality of many of its inhabitants. Although at its publication, The Phoenix was well received as a hopeful trendsetter for other authors coming from an ethnic minority background, the novel has also been met with reservations. Objections were raised, for example, against the fact that the novel was originally written in English – not in the Dutch language – and was only afterwards translated into Dutch. It gives an indication of the significance of the Dutch language as a criterion for the label of a “Flemish author”, even though he or she is of African origin.29 Another recently acclaimed author and public intellectual is Rachida Lamrabet, a female author of Moroccan descent and a lawyer for the Centre for Equality of Opportunity and Opposition to Racism in Brussels. Lamrabet debuted with the prize-winning short story “Mercedes 207” in the previously mentioned anthology KifKif, a short story about the difficulties and hardships encountered by firstgeneration Moroccan men on their arrival to Belgium during the 1960s. Lamrabet’s debut novel Vrouwland (Woman Country), which saw publication in 2007 and won a prestigious debuting prize, describes the experiences of four young people in search of a better life. Central is the painful soul-searching of a Moroccan woman who has immigrated to Belgium and finds herself torn between a western 29

For a more detailed outline of writings by Flemish authors of African descent, see Elisabeth Bekers, “Chronicling Beyond Abyssinia: African Writing in Flanders, Belgium”, in Transcultural Modernities: Narrating Africa in Europe, eds Elisabeth Bekers, Sissy Helff, and Daniela Merolla, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009, 57-69.

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lifestyle and the traditions of her homeland. Lamrabet also published a collection of short stories entitled Child of God in 2009 and the theatre play Belga in 2010. Together with Unigwe, Lamrabet, who is arguably at present the most acclaimed author of ethnic minority background, seems to have paved the way for even more new names that keep on making their appearance on the literary scene in Flanders. In 2009, Naima Albdiouni published her prose debut Voyeur, and Inan Akbas, a young male writer with Turkish roots, self-published his debut novel De nullen (The Zeroes).30 In 2010 the young Morrocan-Flemish Fikry El Azzouzi saw Het schapenfeest (The Sheep Party) published by the Dutch publishing house Van Gennep, a tragi-comic novel about the life of an eleven-year-old boy called Ayoub. Inan Akbas and Fikry El Azzouzi are just two recent examples of a steady, though so far still rather submerged trend of debuting authors with an ethnic minority background in Flanders, which will most certainly expand in the near future. Meanwhile, the still relatively absent category of “allochtoon” writers in Flanders continues to be a mystery that keeps intriguing public debate.31 Conclusion Postcolonial discourses have often stressed the political potential of conditions of displacement, migrancy, and hybridity and saw these as providing subversive perspectives on notions of the nation-state and nationalism. Figurations of transnational border-crossing and 30 Akbas published his novel through a privately owned publisher, called Beefcake Publishing. With respect to some of the problems involved in the intercultural literature policy as elaborated in this essay, it is interesting to consider Akbas’s selfpublishing as an alternative to this government-led approach. In March 2011 moreover, the prose debut Terroriste uit liefde (Terrorist out of Love) written by the Muslim-Flemish publicist Eva Vergaelen was published as an e-book by the aforementioned organization Kifkif (whereas her non-fiction book Thuis in de Islam (At Home in Islam, 2008) was published by the publishing house MeulenhoffManteau). Both Akbas’ and Vergaelen’s prose debuts, however, received minor critical acclaim. 31 Until most recently, the difficult emergence of “allochtoon” writers in Flanders has been a topic of discussion in the literary field. To mention a number of occasions: “Literair salon – Allochtone auteurs” on 17 September 2009, organized by Gynaika Zuiderpershuis, and “MO* debat Allochtone lezers en schrijvers” on 9 November 2010 by Boekenbeurs.

Defining Flemish Literature, Desiring “Allochtoon” Writing 145 metaphors of mobility – “the nomad” (Rosi Braidotti) or “inbetweenness” (Homi Bhabha and Avtar Brah) – proved useful lenses to question these notions, which are conventionally perceived as natural and static. Since the last decade, however, theorists have also warned against too-celebratory readings that deploy migrancy and displacement as theoretical metaphors and remove them from their material conditions. Timothy Brennan argues that “cosmo-theory”, as he pejoratively terms it, wrongly assumes that national sovereignty has “been transcended, the nation-state relegated to an obsolete form, and the present political situation is … one in which newly deracinated populations … are outwitting a new world order in the name of a bold new transnational sphere”.32 In this essay, I have outlined and examined how discourses of cultural nationalism and cultural identity play a role in the reception and promotion of migration literature in Flanders. I have argued that the emphasis on the cultural distinctiveness of “allochtoon” authors in intercultural literary policies find a remarkable parallel in the visible efforts made to distinguish an autonomous literature and literary field in Flanders from Dutch literature on the basis of a culturally distinct identity. However, discourses of cultural identity have divergent effects according to the circumstances in which, and by whom, they are expressed. Targeting authors of ethnic minority descent, intercultural policies venture towards creating a category of literature based on “cultural otherness” even though they simultaneously and paradoxically aim to contribute to creating a multicultural literature in Flanders through the stimulation of this underrepresented category of “allochtoon” authors. I have also argued that definitions of Flemish literature in terms of its cultural distinctive nature are constructed through references to Dutch literature in discussions about the lack and desirability of migration literature in Flanders. In light of these observations, it is worthwhile to refer to the essay “Alive and kicking? Multiculturalism in Flanders”, in which sociologist Dirk Jacobs observes that the idea of multiculturalism – the recognition and protection of immigrants as distinct ethnic groups – is very much embraced in Flanders, while it is in crisis in many

32

Timothy Brennan, Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right, New York: Columbia University, 2006, 219.

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other European countries.33 One way in which Jacobs accounts for the resilience of the focus on ethnic and cultural diversity in the Flemish policy of multiculturalism is by connecting it to the competition between Flemish and Francophones in the Brussels-Capital Region, in which Flemish arguments for cultural distinctiveness are strategically significant: “The recognition and promotion of ethno-cultural diversity could have an added instrumental value in safeguarding the influence of the Flemish community and the de facto importance of the Dutch language in the Belgian capital.”34 Considering the ongoing attempts to distinguish Flemishness in the face of a series of others, be they Dutch, Francophone, or “allochtoon”, it seems that the promises and imaginations of a world beyond cultural nationalism which postcolonial theoretical discourses have read in migration literature and narratives of cross-cultural mobility may well be premature. Whether the search for culture and nation-based paradigms of literature and identity will continue to determine the reception and promotion of migration literature in weaker national communities, such as the Flemish one, remains to be seen.

33

Dirk Jacobs, “Alive and Kicking? Multiculturalism in Flanders”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies, VI/2 (2004), 280-99. 34 Ibid., 289.

III (MULTI)LINGUAL INTERVENTIONS: EXEMPLARY ANALYSES OF LITERARY AND LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES OF LITERARY TEXTS

BI- AND MULTILINGUAL ASPECTS IN THE LITERARY WRITING OF TRANSLINGUAL AUTHORS IN SWEDEN PETER LEONARD

Exile and contradiction Först och främst förlorade jag mitt modersmål – mitt moderland, som Albert Camus uttrycker det – denna min dyrbaraste ägodel. Mitt modersmål blev plötsligt oanvändbart, meningslöst och en belastning för mig. Det upphörde att skydda mig; det upphörde att ge mig en känsla av trygghet och styrka. Jag kunde inte uttrycka mig. När jag berövats mitt modersmål förlorade jag min identitet och personlighet. Jag blev en annan …1

Writing in the 1995 anthology Världen i Sverige (The World in Sweden), Swedish-Kurdish writer Mehmed Uzun presented his language and his identity as inexorably linked. In characterizing the loss of that identity through migration, Uzun invoked an archetypical theme of the exilic experience: the struggle to understand and present the self in a new tongue. In Sweden, large-scale immigration in the second half of the twentieth century has produced a body of literature concerned with this theme.2 In addition, increased attention to the 1

Mehmed Uzun, “Separationen är en sådan sorg”, in Världen i Sverige, eds Madeleine Grive and Mehmed Uzun, Stockholm: En bok för alla, 1995, 19: “First and foremost I lost my mother tongue – my motherland, as Albert Camus expresses it – this, my most precious possession. My mother tongue became suddenly unusable, meaningless and a burden for me. It ceased to protect me; it ceased to give me a feeling of security and strength. I could not express myself. When I was deprived of my mother tongue, I lost my identity and my personality. I became somebody different ….” 2 For surveys of some of these authorships, see Litteraturens gränsland: Invandraroch minoritetslitteratur i nordiskt perspektiv, ed. Satu Gröndahl, Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, 2002, and Lars Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten:

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condition of trans-nationalism and “post-ethnic” identity at the turn of the millennium has focused critical attention on precisely these literary figurations of language change.3 Interestingly enough, the story of Uzun’s literary activities in Sweden from the 1980s on is one of triumph: with support from the Swedish government, he spearheaded the establishment and growth of Kurdish literature abroad, ensuring its dissemination at a scale hitherto unprecedented.4 Is this the contradiction of literary exile: a flowering in the desert, disruption occasioning continuity? If so, what were the forms and limits of this continuity? Echoing Uzun’s claims about the linkage between language and identity, the Brazilian-Swedish poet Guilem da Silva insisted: Mitt språk är garantin för mitt liv Serum mot ensamhetens gift Förnimmelsen om ett tidigare liv5

Da Silva wrote these words in Swedish. Was this new language, then, “mitt språk” (“my language”) as much as the Portuguese to which the poem apparently refers? The ambiguity of the reference is perhaps one of the contradictions of exilic consciousness. These contradictions certainly weighed upon Theodor Kallifatides, a writer who made his mark not in his native Greek but rather in Swedish. Publishing dozens of novels and achieving the position of editor of Bonniers litterära magasin6 during the 1970s, he returned to the question of language and identity repeatedly. In an essay published in the Harvard Review in 1993, Kallifatides wrote of the threat to identity posed by learning a new language:

Immigrant- och minoritetslitteratur på svenska 1970-2000, Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, 2002. 3 For a US perspective on this term, see David Hollinger, Post-Ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism, New York: Basic, 1995. 4 Litteraturens gränsland, 340. 5 Guilem Rodrigues da Silva, quoted in Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten, 125: “My language is the guarantee of my life / Serum against the poison of solitude / The perception of an earlier life”. 6 Published from 1932-1999 and 2002-2004, Bonniers Literary Magazine was one of Sweden’s foremost literary journals. It focused on contemporary literature, presenting criticism and essays alongside original fiction.

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… my concepts of language and identity are very simple. Whenever I speak of language I refer to the natural language, not to formal devices. And when I speak of identity I refer to all the ideas we have about ourselves, rightly or wrongly, of what kind of person we think we are. My point is that this whole set of ideas may change or simply collapse under the weight of a new language – and that is exactly what happens to most immigrants, although very few are conscious of it.7

Understanding these contradictions and dangers requires a close reading of what is commonly termed första generationens invandrarlitteratur (“first-generation immigrant literature”) in Sweden. My focus will be on Theodor Kallifatides (b. 1938), Azar Mahloujian (b. 1949), and Fateme Behros (1944-2009). My interest is not especially in these authors’ biographies or sociological backgrounds, except as those emerge in their writing. Rather, what makes them helpful to this study is the degree to which they represented language and identity in what we might term “Swedish exile”. It is important to stress I mean a neutral sense of “exile”: I use the term merely to describe the conditions of change and assimilation to a language and culture thematized as different from a given protagonist’s native language and culture. This most often means characters who encounter Swedish as an adult, rather than a child, and often in circumstances not of their choosing. These are books of asylum, escape, and unknown destinations, not narratives of leisure travel. The characters we meet in these pages generally come to Sweden during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Such divisions and categories naturally are artificial. Lars Wendelius has noted that the notion of first-generation immigrant authorship “can undoubtedly become a cliché which is used in an alltoo mechanical way”.8 And Kallifatides himself has noted: Ju mer jag ansträngde mig för att närma mig det svenska samhället och kulturen, desto tydligare klassificerades jag som en främling. Efter trettio böcker är jag alltjämt i den senaste litteraturhistorien

7

Theodor Kallifatides, “Language and Identity”, Harvard Review, IV (Spring 1993), 113. 8 Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten, 47.

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Magnus Nilsson, in his contribution to this volume, examines this category of “immigrant writer” in a pre-2000 context and concludes that it is fundamentally under-theorized. Critics assumed that such a classification depicted a literary reality, and proceeded from this point, but scholarly treatments are few and critical attention relatively scant. The entire field remains so marginalized and peripheral that it seems strange to try and link the best-sellers of the 2000s with the works examined here. What we thus see in these authors is the origins of a category, before that category had widespread importance. Indeed, with the emergence of a younger wave of authors publishing on Swedish identity and language in the 2000s,10 the work of this earlier generation assumes more relevance – as do the processes of categorization and classification which their work set in motion. These earlier works should be examined not by applying what Kallifatides bemoaned as “different criteria and values”, but rather by highlighting both continuity and change in literary representations of Swedish identity over time. How, then, did these pioneer writers represent language encounter, language learning, and language change? Was the process of acquiring Swedish enjoyable, traumatic, or at times both? Do the characters we meet restrict different languages to different communicative spheres, or do the various tongues serve overlapping purposes and find use in overlapping spaces? Most importantly, for a literary investigation, what were the emotive aspects of language in Swedish literature from this era? How did authors write about a new language, not just in it?

9

Theodor Kallifatides, Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster, Stockholm: Bonniers, 2001, 12: “The more I strained to approach Swedish society and culture, the more clearly I was classified as a foreigner. After thirty books I am still counted in the immigrant author section of the latest literary history, a category apart with different criteria and values.” 10 For studies of this younger generation, see Cora Lacatus, The (In)Visibility Complex: Negotiating Otherness in Contemporary Sweden, Stockholm: Centre for Research in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, 2008, and Magnus Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen: Klass och etnicitet i svensk samtidsprosa, Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2010.

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Drawing precise lines between genres of autobiography and fiction (always an inexact science) is particularly difficult in first-generation immigrant literature. This question is bound up with the special burdens that immigrant authorship often must bear. Many of these authors’ books have been interpreted purely autobiographically, treated by critics and lay readers alike as more valuable for their documentary realism than for their artistic merit.11 This phenomenon, as Nilsson explains in this present volume, is partly explicable by a Bourdieuian analysis of the Swedish literary field: autobiography is one genre in which a different background carries undeniable cultural capital. (This holds true whether or not the author presents his or her work as autobiography.) Awareness of this problem does not inoculate one from falling victim to it, and in sections below I draw connections between author and text when I think it useful. These authors chose various domains in which to figure the particularities of language: work, family, and love among these. These domains constituted different arenas, some public and some private, in which issues of language change, adoption, and conflict played out. Yet crossing all these domains was the common problem of power: the unequal relationship between new Swedes and the society they encountered, and the role that language played in both creating and bridging that gap. In many cases authors figure language as a double-edged sword, opening up new avenues of communication while at the same time efficiently marking outsider status. Theodor Kallifatides wrote with great emotion about the joys of courting women in a new language, but captured just as well workplace discrimination in a society whose commitment to equality did not extend to non-Swedish speakers. Azar Mahloujian wrote of the miraculous connection between exilic individuals across linguistic boundaries, based on no more than fractured vocabulary and mutual third tongues. Yet alongside these instances of connection was the opposite: normative Swedish as marker of national belonging, the language itself a terrain of threat and 11

Though a similar reception would meet later authors – Nilsson treats the autobiographical reception of Khemiri’s first novel in this volume – those works were at least seen as depicting a vibrant, exotic youth culture with implications for the future of the nation. Works by middle-aged immigrants, written before a period of visible demographic change, had a more limited appeal.

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xenophobia. Thus, in these books, Swedish functioned as both shelter and shibboleth, an element of human culture with the power to unite and divide, and the space of both belonging and exclusion. This space of belonging and exclusion can be explored in a number of different ways, but I will focus on three. First, I explore the family as a symbol of inter-generational linguistic change. In this section, we see the abstract concept of “time” personified as parent and child, concrete links to the past and future of any given individual. Second, I take a closer look at how the power dynamics inherent in language change within both professional and interpersonal relations. Finally, I examine some aspects of contingency and context in exilic figurations of identity: the unpredictability of circumstances, and the importance of those circumstances for an individual’s self-understanding. In all sections, I maintain a focus on the way that fictive characters perceive the internal cohesion of their self-representation, under various kinds of stresses and pressures. Inter-generational language change: loss and connection through time Inter-generational comparisons within the same family present an ideal setting for treating a subject as complex as identity: bound by blood, yet separated by time and experience, the members of a family comprise a kind of Petri dish for literary experimentation with the meaning and consequences of language change. In Kallifatides’ 1995 novel Det sista ljuset (The Last Light), Greek immigrant Odysseas Christou relies upon his son for the finer points of the Swedish language: Det var sonen som hade lärt honom det ordet. Själv hade han inte haft tid att lära sig mer svenska än det nödvändigaste. Att handla mat och tobak, att gå till doktorn, att sköta sitt jobb .... Det gick ändå att klara sig, det var bara tre ord som behövdes: ja, nej, och fan. Det verkade inte heller som om svenskarna behövde fler ord.12

12

Theodor Kallifatides, Det sista ljuset, Stockholm: Bonniers, 1995, 6: “It was his son who had taught him that word. He himself had not had time to teach himself more Swedish than the bare essentials. Buying food and tobacco, going to the doctor, doing his job …. He could make it work, there were just three words necessary: yes, no and damn. It didn’t seem like the Swedes themselves needed any more words.”

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This functional, rather than emotional, connection to Swedish is typical of one pattern which emerges in these books: that of an immigrant learning enough of the new language to survive, but no more. Home life, kin relationships, and other personally meaningful communicative acts continue in the old language. For Odysseas, relying upon his son for help with Swedish vocabulary is only natural. Yet an imbalance between a child and a parent’s mastery of Swedish was sometimes portrayed as a potential fissure in the family: a crack occasioned by the conditions of exile in the façade of togetherness. The result was a power displacement; an inversion of the normative roles of parent and child in the particular domain of the new language. The elder was infantilized by his or her inability to master the new tongue, the child empowered by the same. Fateme Behros portrayed such a scene between a mother and her daughter in the 1997 novel Som ödet vill (As Fate Wishes). A chance meeting at the grocery store between a schoolteacher and one of her pupils turns into a linguistic vignette of differential belonging in Swedish culture: “Hon kan inte tala svenska,” förklarade flickan, medan hennes rosenfärgade ansikte bleknade för varje sekund. “Jaha,” sa svenskan och log ännu en gång mot kvinnan och vände sedan blicken mot flickan …. När hon hade gått frågade kvinnan: “Vem var det?” “Min lärare,” sa flickan. “Usch, så hemskt. Varför sa du inte det?” “Vad spelar det för roll?” “Jo, men det var ju din lärare.” …. “Du som inte kan hennes språk,” sa flickan otåligt.13

For the schoolgirl unlucky enough to run into her teacher at the market, the grocery aisle becomes an awkward encounter between the private and the public sphere, an unwanted reminder of the gap in 13

Fateme Behros, Som ödet vill, Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1997, 279: “‘She can’t speak Swedish,’ the girl explained, while her rose-coloured face grew paler every second. ‘Aha,’ said the Swede and smiled once more at the woman, then turned her gaze to the girl …. When she had left the woman asked ‘Who was that?’ ‘My teacher,’ said the girl. ‘Ugh, how horrible. Why didn’t you tell me?” “What does it matter?’ ‘Well, but she is your teacher.’ …. ‘You can’t even speak her language,’ said the girl impatiently.”

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cultural competence between her parental authority figures and her teacher. Though these particular characters do not reoccur in the novel, Behros returns to the problem of children who feel more at ease in the new country than their parents do. Just as in the grocery store, it is language that plays a determinative role in assigning individuals to categories. As a son prepares to head out to meet friends, Behros italicizes his one Swedish word as if to emphasize the implicit challenge to his parents: “‘But mom, I’m in a hurry. I’m going out with some friends,’ said Farzad. He spoke Persian, but used the Swedish word for ‘hurry’.”14 The family’s conflicts over independence – both recreational and cultural – do not end there. Later in the same chapter, Farzad’s sister Shahrzad stumbles into surely the most treacherous kind of family disloyalty, eschewing both her parents’ language as well as their cooking. Shahrzad ryckte på axlarna. “Jag tycker inte om auberginer.” Ali vände mot mig och sa: “Hörde du? De har till och med ändrat smak!” “Vad ska jag göra? Jag kan inte hjälpa, att jag inte tycker om auberginer,” sa Shahrzad på svenska. “Tala persiska!” sa Ali. “Jag vet inte hur man säger det på persiska,” sa Shahrzad. Ali blev rasande. “Gud, jag blir vansinnig. Hon kan inte tala sitt eget språk.”15

Behros’ portrayal of how strongly Ali reacts to his children speaking Swedish suggests the threat that the new language posed to parents and their control of the domestic sphere. Boyden and Declercq, in their contribution to this volume, argue for the utility of sociolinguistic terms in describing literary heteroglossia such as the 14

Ibid., 287: “‘Men mamma, jag har bråttom. Jag ska ut med några kompisar,’ sa Farzad. Han talade persiska, men använde ordet bråttom på svenska.” 15 Ibid., 288-89: “Shahrzad shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t like aubergine.’ Ali turned towards me and said: ‘Did you hear that? They’ve even changed their tastes!’ ‘What am I going to do? I can’t help that I don’t like aubergine,’ said Shahrzad in Swedish. ‘Speak Farsi!’ said Ali. ‘I don’t know how to say it in Farsi,’ said Shahrzad. Ali was incensed. ‘My god, I’m going crazy. She can’t speak her own language.’”

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scenes above. Describing the interplay between diglossia and bilingualism, they arrive at a quadripartite schema which represents a “dynamic model of language strategies in multicultural literature”.16 Though their focus is on the use of language by authors, rather than fictional characters, their terminology is useful insofar as it helps to theorize the issues depicted in Behros’ staging of Ali and his children. In the domestic scenes from Som ödet vill, Farzad and his sister Shahrzad also exhibit what we may term “diglossia with bilingualism”. They speak in Farsi to their parents at home, yet interjecting phrases and words from Swedish that are strongly associated with their own identities and lifestyles. These phrases connect with their own developing sense of independence as Swedish teenagers: “in a hurry” in the context of meeting friends; and “I can’t help it if …” in the context of avoiding a family obligation. Their father Ali, however, rejects their use of “different codes in different contexts” and insists (perhaps in vain) on a monolingual domestic sphere. Kallifatides’ depiction of the heritage language in the Christou family in Det sista ljuset is more sympathetic, seeming to capture the positive emotional aspects of a heritage language in this context. When Odysseas and his wife have their first son, his relationship to the child – as well as his responsibility for him –is defined strictly in Greek: Fåran i själen fylldes av sonens skratt, av hans stapplande steg, av hans tunna röst som ropade på honom och kallade honom “pappa” fast på grekiska, eftersom det för Odysseas var omöjligt att vara far på ett annat språk.17

Odysseas, as depicted in Det sista ljuset, is a character who seems to have made his peace with a bifurcated approach to language: limited Swedish for his professional work, expressive and heartfelt Greek for family life. Kallifatides presents Odysseas’ use of “different codes for different contexts” as relatively unproblematic: though it might be 16

See Boyden and Declercq’s Table 2 in their contribution to this volume. Kallifatides, Det sista ljuset, 9: “The trenches in his soul were filled by his son’s laugh, by his toddling steps, by his thin voice which called out for him and called him ‘papa’ – but in Greek, because for Odysseas it was impossible to be a father in any other tongue.” 17

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“impossible” for Odysseas to be a father in Swedish, he gets by just fine as a car mechanic in that tongue. Further, as his son becomes older he learns new words from him to expand his vocabulary. Odysseas even sees a kind of parallel between the taciturnity of Swedes and the few words of their language he knows: both represent linguistic “bare essentials”. Yet Kallifatides’ depiction of fatherhood in the language of the old country is nonetheless made bittersweet by the overarching plot of Det sista ljuset, which concerns the chasm between familial expectations and the demands of individualism in contemporary Swedish society. The term pappa here functions as a metonym for the entire apparatus of relationships in a family which has undergone a transnational migration – an apparatus which under Kallifatides’ microscope shows the strains and stresses of cultural, as well as geographic, alienation. The relationship between Odysseas and his son Petros is itself an unsolved mystery in Det sista ljuset, the plot of which chronicles the effort to understand the young man’s suicide. Yet Kallifatides, here as elsewhere, pairs loss with recovery. An intriguing complement to Odysseas and his dead son is the relationship between Kicki Sjöqvist, the police officer assigned to investigate Petros’ death, and her own Greek father. Just as Petros is present in the book only through his absence, so too has Kicki’s father long since disappeared from her life. Though she does not identify herself as half-Greek, Kicki cannot completely escape the ghost of the man who abandoned her and her mother. Kallifatides captures the ambivalence of the young police officer towards her own heritage as she attends the Greek Orthodox funeral of Petros Christou in the course of her investigation: Prästen fortsatte att läsa. Kicki förstod ingenting, men hon tyckte om att höra det språk hennes far hade talat med henne. Man skulle inte ha trott att hon kom ihåg något av det lilla hennes far hade lärt henne innan han lämnade dem. Man skulle ha trott att hon glömt allt, men det hade hon inte. En liten flicka inom henne mindes, det var bara det att hon hade glömt den flickan så länge nu.18 18

Ibid., 109: “The priest continued to read. Kicki didn’t understand anything, but she enjoyed hearing the language her father had spoken with her. One wouldn’t think that she would remember anything of the small amount her father had taught her before he left them. One would have thought that she had forgotten everything, but she had not.

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Though it is chance that Kicki’s job has brought her into contact with this Greek family, this coincidence has a profound effect on her. A driven professional who is at home in the workaholic culture of Stockholm, Kicki understands herself as a Swede pure and simple, without any of the complexities of “double identity” or other tropes of multicultural discourse. Yet Kallifatides seems intent on transforming Kicki’s identity – “the ideas we have about ourselves, rightly or wrongly, of what kind of person we think we are”, in his words – through this chance encounter with her father’s language. The Greek language suddenly and unexpectedly re-asserts itself, spurring memories of her childhood and her long-gone father. The dénouement of this linguistic transformation of identity occurs as Petros’ coffin is lowered into the frozen earth, provoking his grieving mother to wail: Adriana stred och slet som ett djur. Hon skrek på det språk som Kickis far hade talat med henne på när hon var liten och Kicki kände plötsligt igen ett ord som under alla dessa år ruvat i hennes hjärnceller: mitt barn, mitt barn.19

Kallifatides achieves here a kind of temporal and generational reversal, filtering the trauma of identity loss through a bi-directional lens. The Christou family’s unbearable sorrow over the death of their Swedish son awakens in Kicki her own feelings about the loss of her Greek father. Petros Christou represented the future of his family, both in terms of his younger years as well as his mastery of that language that his mother and father only haltingly speak. His death by his own hand sets a bitter and tragic coda to his parents’ long migration and painful cultural adjustment. (Indeed, the Christou marriage will not survive, though both parents do: the family is gone, while individuals struggle on.) For Kicki Sjöqvist, conversely, the words of Greek spoken at Petros’ funeral draw her backwards in time, towards her paternal

A little girl within her remembered, it was just that she had forgotten that girl a long time ago.” 19 Ibid., 116: “Adriana fought and labored like an animal. She screamed in the language that Kicki’s father had spoken to her when she was young, and Kicki suddenly recognized a word which had sat in her brain cells during all these years: my child, my child.”

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heritage and an aspect of identity she has long sought to minimize, if not outright deny. If the Christous’ tragedy is that their link with the future is severed, as Kallifatides seems to suggest, then Kicki’s is that her link to the past is similarly broken. Just as Odysseas can only be a pappa in Greek, it takes Adriana’s cry of “my child” in that same language to shock Kicki into remembering her father’s voice. Across a frozen grave, a mother’s cry links a long-missing father and a son gone all too recently. Det sista ljuset is a narrative beset by tragedy. Kallifatides’ characters are tormented by their own imperfections, the alienation of modern Swedish society, and the trauma of exile or abandonment. Yet the figures at Petros’ funeral remain people who ... lyssnade på ett språk som de inte förstod och deltog i en sorg som inte var deras. Ändå kändes det rätt och riktigt. Vad är det att vara en människa, om inte att kunna dela en sorg som inte är ens egen?20

This central scene in Det sista ljuset echoes Kallifatides’ narrative of his own graveside experiences in Greece, chronicled in the 1989 En lång dag i Athen (A Long Day in Athens). Explicitly autobiographical, this volume narrates a poignant task: digging up and re-burying his father due to the expiration of the grave’s lease. In contrast to the scene from Det sista ljuset, this event takes place in the Greek summer sun. The change of seasons, however, does not preclude melancholic thoughts about the ability of writers to reach across the barriers of language. Just as by the side of Petros Christou’s grave, it is the interplay between Swedish and Greek that drives the narrative: Vi talade inte mycket. Vi nöjde oss med att gå, med att se på detta hav av gravar som omgav oss och jag hamnade en liten stund mitt emellan mina två språk, grekiska och svenska. Jag sa tyst ordet “tafos” och lika tyst ordet “grav”. Jag ställde dem mot varandra, jag lät dem studsa mot varandra, jag vägde dem på en våg som finns djupt under mitt hjärta. Det var helt klart att “tafos” var ett annat ord än “grav”, fast bägge betyder samma sak. Men mellan dem rådde samma skillnad som mellan en målning och en teckning med samma motiv där tafos 20

Ibid., 115: “... listened to a language they did not understand and partook in a sorrow which was not theirs. Yet it felt right and correct. What is it to be human, if not to be able to share a sorrow that is not one’s own?”

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var målningen och graven teckningen. Givetvis visste jag allt detta förut, men så tydligt hade jag aldrig känt det; och jag greps av panik att allt jag hade skrivit var meningslöst, andefattigt, falskt. Det var bara reflexer av mitt riktiga språk, mitt riktiga “jag”. Hur hade jag kunnat lura mig själv så länge?21

Kallifatides’ crisis of faith is resolved, in this instance, by his ability to internalize the meaning of Swedish words through precisely such visceral experiences as the one he has just described. The experience of confronting the paucity of associations that the Swedish word grav had for him was enough to come to terms with the problem, and to evoke a newer and deeper set of associations that would guide his further writing. But the problem remains in the abstract: here was Kallifatides face-to-face with his own mortality, in the form of his father’s body in the process of its excavation from Greek soil. What would it mean for Kallifatides if the crucial word grav remained a shadow of tafos? One can imagine the implications for the man, to say nothing of the professional author. As in Det sista ljuset, the figure in the grave represents a link across both time and language. Petros lies buried in the new country, and with him the Christou family’s hopes for the future. Kallifatides’ father, however, lies buried in the old country, and his re-burial occasions a crisis in his son at the intersection of the past and future. Has Kallifatides’ long path from Stockholm dishwasher to the upper echelons of Swedish letters been a charade? Against all evidence to the contrary, the simple Greek word tafos threatens to cause his identity to, in the words of his Harvard Review essay, “simply

21

Theodor Kallifatides, En lång dag i Athen, Stockholm: Bonniers, 1989, 31: “We didn’t speak much. We contented ourselves by walking, by observing at the sea of graves that surrounded us, and I found myself between my two languages, Greek and Swedish, for a little while. I said the word ‘tafos’ quietly and just as quietly the word ‘grav’. I set them against each other, I let them bump into each other, I weighed them on a scale that was deep in my heart. It was clear that ‘tafos’ was a different word than ‘grav’, though both mean the same thing. But the same difference prevailed between them as between a painting and a drawing of the same motif, where tafos was the painting and grav the drawing. Naturally I knew all this before, but I had never felt it so clearly; and I was gripped by a panic that everything I had written was meaningless, inane, false. They were merely reflections of my real language, my real ‘I’. How could I have fooled myself so long?”

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collapse under the weight of a new language”. Why this chronic insecurity and self-doubt? As the tale from the Athens graveyard hints at, there lies a complex tale behind the successful author we meet in the books of the 1990s and 2000s. In earlier writing, Kallifatides devoted great attention to power relationships inherent in the language acquisition. It is to these power relationships that I now turn. Sites of power: dynamics of language in labor, love and learning In the 1970 novel Utlänningar (Foreigners), Kallifatides wrote of the harsh working conditions in Stockholm restaurants in which many immigrants worked. “There were no courses for foreigners in those days”, he would later write: “There was, however, a book designed for foreigners, but … [it] seemed more of an IQ test than anything else.”22 Without any kind of common language, Greeks, Yugoslavs, and Turks did their best in bestial conditions far removed from the elegance upstairs. Yet solidarity only went so far: the main character is convinced that there must be a spy in the kitchen. His suspicions fall upon two Finnish girls, as he: ... rökte och försökte reda ut vem var spik åt chefen, för säkert måste det finnas någon. Jugoslaverna kunde inte språket, inte heller turkarna, men flickorna kanske? Den där lilla som log?23

The lack of a common language in the workplace contributes in Utlänningar to a tense environment where the various nationalities fight against one another more than for their common class interests. Rather than singing the Internationale: [i] köket hörs det bara en enda melodi och den består av tallrikarnas och bestickens klang samt svordomarna mellan folk som inte förstår varandra. Italienare svär åt spanjorer, spanjorer åt jugoslaver, jugoslaver åt finländare, finländare åt svenskar, svenskar åt alla och

22

Kallifatides, “Language and Identity”, 116. Theodor Kallifatides, Utlänningar, Stockholm Bonniers, 1970, 48: “ ... smoked and tried to straighten out who could be the boss’ spy, because surely there must be one. The Yugoslavs didn’t know the language, nor did the Turks, but the girls perhaps? That little one who smiled?” 23

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greker åt varandra …. Deras enda frihet består i att de inte begriper varandra ....24

The power hierarchy embedded in this Babel is nonetheless clear: without better Swedish, the protagonist will remain invisible, as he finds that “while I talked with the boss in rough German he looked away the entire time”.25 Or worse: he will be victim of a criminal justice system he does not understand. In an observation probably drawn from Kallifatides’ own experience being falsely accused of stealing from a restaurant,26 the protagonist of Utlänningar bitterly observes that “it’s always easier for the police to overrule a person whom nobody understands”.27 Ethnic injustice and inequality in a country known for its commitment to Social Democratic principles was alone an original contribution to public discourse, especially in the early 1970s. For Kallifatides’ characters, trying to survive in Stockholm without the key of the Swedish language, exposed a society that fell well short of its aspirations. Early reviews noted these “experiences of discrimination in the Social Welfare state”.28 Yet his novels also portray linguistic difficulties as a personal challenge, to be met through hard work and study, rather than purely an indictment of the larger society. In Utlänningar the protagonist practices Swedish for hours: “During these evenings I most often quietly repeated wordlists”, committing to study “the new language intensively for many hours each day”.29 Towards the end of the novel 24

Ibid., 60: “in the kitchen one only hears one melody and it consists of the clatter of plates and cutlery together with the swearing between people who cannot understand one another. Italians swear at Spaniards, Spaniards at Yugoslavs, Yugoslavs at Finns, Finns at Swedes, Swedes at everyone and Greeks at each other …. Their only freedom consists of that they do not understand one another ....” 25 Ibid., 45: “medan jag talade med chefen på knagglig tyska tittade han hela tiden bort.” 26 See Kallifatides, “Language and Identity”, 115, for an English-language summary of this experience. 27 Kallifatides, Utlänningar, 78: “…[d]et är alltid lättare för polisen att avvisa en man som ingen begriper vad han säger.” 28 Wendelius, Den dubbla identiteten, 45. 29 Kallifatides, Utlänningar: “Under dessa kvällar brukade jag för det mesta tyst repetera ordlistor…” (115), and “det nya språket intensivt flera timmar varje dag” (122).

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his Swedish has become “adequate to manage the simple conversations which my work required”.30 The various strategies for learning Swedish enumerated in Utlänningar – out of patronizing textbooks, from small children, by memorizing wordlists, and through translating Strindberg – are testimony to the seriousness with which the protagonist treats the task. And in other volumes Kallifatides writes of not just hard work, but also pure joy: I början då jag var en främling som skulle erövra främlingskapet kastade jag mig över det nya språket likt en utsvulten hund över en saftig köttbit. Jag åt upp svenskan. Jag fyllde min mun med ord, tuggade dem, svalde dem. Ibland blev det för mycket. Hjärnan svullnade och dunkade mot skallen …. Jag tog vissa ord i min mun som praliner.31

It could not be merely the labour market that gave Kallifatides’ characters such motivation – it had to also be matters of the heart. In early scenes from Utlänningar, the lack of a common language does not hinder the protagonist from going on dates. But eventually problems develop: “then the silence follows, partly because you don’t have anything to say, and partly because you don’t have a language to say it in. And if you don’t have that, then neither do you find anything to say.”32 Just as in the workplace, the lack of a lingua franca created problems in dating. Yet the protagonist proves more successful in love than in labour negotiation: the same broken German that caused his boss at the restaurant to avert his eyes has a decidedly more positive effect on a young woman:

30

Ibid., 126: “tillräcklig för att klara av de enklare samtal som mitt arbete krävde.” Theodor Kallifatides, Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster, Stockholm: Bonniers, 2001, 51: “In the beginning, when I was a foreigner who would conquer my foreignness, I threw myself at the new language like a famished dog on a juicy piece of meat. I ate up Swedish. I filled my mouth with words, chewed them, swallowed them. Sometimes it was too much. My brain swelled and beat against my skull …. I put certain words in my mouth like pralines.” 32 Kallifatides, Utlänningar, 82: “sedan följer tystnaden, dels för att man inget har att säga och dels för att man inte har ett språk att säga det på och har man inte det då hittar man heller inget att säga.” 31

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Vi satte oss i en park efter de inledande fraserna. Det blev jag som talade för det mesta för när jag dricker går även munnen som en symaskin på mig. Jag talade en blandning av svenska och tyska, berättade om mitt liv och medan jag berättade började jag förstå att jag hade levat ett underbart liv och det tyckte även Eva.33

It is with Eva that the protagonist had his first significant romance in Utlänningar. But another woman – Maja, whose family fled Hungary due to the persecution of Jews – would prove to be yet more important for both his personal and linguistic development. As the protagonist notes: “She spoke Swedish nearly perfectly, but a slight accent remained and I felt on a more equal footing.”34 This notion of a Greek and a Hungarian in Sweden, relating to each other through a neutral third language, seems to evoke Kallifatides’ sense of fairness – his use of the Swedish adjective jämställd (“equal”), with its political connotations of equality and justice, is no doubt well-considered. Though the relationship with Maja would not prove to be permanent, Kallifatides reserves some of his most intimate and sensitive writing for depiction of trans-lingual communication between the pair. This is in stark contrast to the confusion and aggression of the polyglot kitchen environment in the beginning of Utlänningar, where the narrator darkly observes that “when you swear at somebody who doesn’t understand you, there’s hardly any point in the whole thing”.35 In contrast to his depictions of the restaurant kitchen, Kallifatides depicts Maja speaking in Hungarian in some of the most tender writing in the entire novel, describing her use of a language he does not speak at the moment of their sexual union: “finally she said just one single word over and over.”36 Utlänningar does not depict a complete and total transformation in any form – linguistic, cultural, or personal. By the end of the novel, 33

Ibid., 101: “We sat in a park after the introductory exchange. It was I who did most of the talking, because when I drink my mouth goes like a sewing machine. I spoke a mixture of Swedish and German, told her about my life, and while I was telling I began to understand that I had lived a wonderful life. Eva thought so too.” 34 Ibid., 139: “Hon talade svenska nästan perfekt, men en liten brytning fanns kvar och jag kände mig mera jämställd.” 35 Ibid., 61f.: “när man svär åt någon som inte förstår en då finns det ju knappast någon mening med det hela.” 36 Ibid., 153: “till slut sade hon bara ett enda ord flera gånger.”

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the protagonist has arrived at a compromise between his Greek thoughts and his Swedish environment, one that allows him to function and interact both personally and professionally: Det hade gått framåt med min svenska. Jag tänkte fortfarande på grekiska och i princip översatte jag allt jag sade men jag hade trots allt skaffat mig några satser som var helt automatiska och jag hade slutat bli förvånad varje gång någon tilltalade mig på svenska.37

This transformation, as modest as it might be, describes a kind of victory for the protagonist of Utlänningar. In his relationship to the Swedish language, he stands at one end of a spectrum in Kallifatides’ writing, in roughly the same position as Odysseas Christou: a functional, working relationship to the second tongue. Further along on this spectrum lies Kallifatides’ depiction of himself in En lång dag i Athen, standing by the grave of his father and questioning his own professional success in Swedish. Further still, the fictional gestalt of the native speaker Kicki Sjöqvist, whose memories of Greek are only awakened by a stranger’s funeral in Det sista ljuset. This continuum could be filled in with many more characters from Kallifatides’ writing, both the autobiographical and the novelistic. His authorship is rich, varied, and extraordinarily sensitive in its depiction of language change as gradual, complex, and often recursive. Even if few other authors can match the breadth and depth of Kallifatides, one final writer will help fill out a consideration of language, identity and power in a Swedish context. Azar Mahloujian’s 1995 novel De sönderrivna bilderna (The Torn Pictures) chronicles a trans-national escape from oppression in Tehran, through such settings as Istanbul, Belgrade, and finally Swedish Umeå.38 On her journey, the protagonist Minoo encounters a wildly diverse linguistic 37

Ibid., 157: “My Swedish had progressed. I still thought in Greek, and in principle I translated everything I said, but I had nevertheless gotten myself some phrases that were completely automatic. And I had stopped being surprised every time somebody addressed me in Swedish.” 38 The relationship between author and protagonist in this volume is more complex than it might first appear. Azar Mahloujian wrote under the pseudonym Nahid, but soon revealed her identity in the course of the book’s publicity campaign. The protagonist is consistently referred to as Minoo throughout the narrative, and Mahloujian herself refers to the book as an “autobiographical novel”.

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landscape, which until her arrival in Sweden is characterized by fumbling, yet good-natured attempts at mutual intelligibility and comprehension. Yet once in Sweden, her relationship with the majority language changes, and issues of power and control come to the fore. Throughout the narrative, the linguistic elements bear a central burden of representing both positive and negative aspects of exile and migration. Before coming to Sweden, Minoo has already encountered a sympathetic Turkish bus driver, with whom her group of refugees communicates by using an old man’s knowledge of the related Azerbaijani. A friendly clerk at her Yugoslavian youth hostel helps Minoo puzzle out the Serbian writing system, with help from Minoo’s own previous knowledge of Russian. A janitor at the same hostel adopts her into her own family, based on nothing more than Minoo’s few words of Serbo-Croatian and the janitor’s paltry knowledge of German, learned from a previous experience as a Gastarbeiter in that state. And Minoo even forms a friendship with an Iraqi woman who shares her hostel room, striking up a conversation in English that bridges the gap between Arabic and Farsi. In each of these instances, Mahloujian captures the unlikely triumph of connection and understanding across linguistic and cultural barriers. Language, during Minoo’s flight from Iran, is a barrier to be overcome, but not an impassable one. Yet this figuration of language as a surmountable problem changes radically once Minoo arrives in Sweden. The change in Mahloujian’s writing once Minoo has come to Umeå is immediate and palpable. Chapter 22 begins starkly: “Svartskalle” skriver min lärare på tavlan kort efter kursstarten. Hon pekar på ordet och säger att om någon säger det till oss ska vi svara med “jag skiter i Sverige.” Vi skriver av allt som står på tavlan. Vi förstår att hon vill att vi ska kunna försvara oss mot eventuella angrepp. Jag lär mig det utantill. Snart får jag användning för min kunskap.39

39

Azar Mahloujian, De sönderrivna bilderna, Stockholm Bonnier Alba, 1995, 84: “‘Darkie,’ writes my teacher on the board shortly after the course begins. She points to the word and says that if anyone says it to us, we should answer with ‘Screw Sweden.’ We write down everything on the board. We understand that she wants us to

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This, the first mention of Swedish vocabulary in the entire book, sets the tone for the relationship between the language and its new speakers. As Mahloujian foreshadows, Minoo is soon verbally attacked with the same epithet she has learned in language class. Mahloujian describes this verbal encounter with the language of war: “I feel scared, but at the same time proud, because I am armed with a correct response.”40 Though Minoo eventually pities her attacker and declines to answer him with the riposte she has memorized, the tone has been set: the Swedish language is a battleground for national belonging, with the immigrant on the losing side. Nor does Minoo herself first embrace the language with open arms. For a speaker of Farsi, English, and French, this Northern language seems too un-worldly, resonating in only a small, dark corner of the globe. Her ambitions are the world cities of Paris or London, not Umeå. Only through her cousin Ali’s insistence that learning Swedish would be something to “fill her days with” does Minoo commit herself to the language classes.41 Aside from the early encounter with verbal racism on the street, Minoo’s first halting conversations in Swedish are with fellow refugees, who come from all corners of the world and bring with them political attitudes challenging to her. Thus it is in beginning Swedish that Minoo, who was active in left-wing opposition to the Shah, hears first-hand the attitudes of South Vietnamese and Poles towards Communism. Eventually Swedish language courses become “the only point of light” in her existence in Umeå, leading to a positive perception of Swedes themselves and an interest in their language. Through patience and an excellent teacher, Minoo’s initial disdain for Swedish transforms into eager enthusiasm. This positive approach to the language would serve Minoo well, because the role of Swedish in power relations between immigrants and citizens remains evident throughout Mahloujian’s novel. Minoo’s chance encounter at a local museum with the same police officer handling her asylum case impresses the public servant both with her increasing Swedish vocabulary, as well as her interest in art. Minoo’s be able to defend ourselves against possible attacks. I learn it by heart. Soon I will have use for the knowledge.” 40 Ibid.: “Rädd, men samtidigt stolt, känner jag mig, eftersom jag är beväpnad med ett riktigt svar.” 41 Ibid., 86.

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mastery of new phrases, no less than her presence in the gallery itself, forms a part of “performing” Swedishness and leads both her and her cousin to hope that her chances for staying in the country have increased. Yet on the private job market, “språksvårigheter” (“language difficulties”) combined with latent racism would continue to preclude gainful employment.42 And in a pendant to her Swedish teacher’s initial warning about svartskalle, Minoo finds that when she is verbally attacked by a xenophobic customer in a store, “I didn’t know Swedish well enough to answer her”.43 As her skills in Swedish increase, so do the demands put on her by society to defend her ethnic difference through that same language. Contingency and context Much of this literature describes a dramatic change in cultural, political and geographic environment. Characters who have undergone migration are often depicted as being in a state of uncertainty, in which the underlying assumptions of their own identities are suddenly changed. In a new context they find that their first language is no longer understood, their ethnicity is no longer the majority, and their home is no longer their place of birth. Instead, who they are has been re-cast in a new and foreign context: a Middle-Easterner in Northern Europe, or a speaker of Greek in Stockholm. For this reason, we often see linguistic identity framed in terms of contingency (the arbitrariness or unpredictability of circumstances) and context (the background for an individual’s self-understanding.) Evidence from both Mahloujian and Kallifatides helps capture the contingency of language, together with the centrality of context, in depictions of exilic identity in Sweden. One example comes from one of the times Minoo is confronted with racism and xenophobia on the streets of Sweden, and another from when she feels an unexpected affinity for that same country when on the streets of a different land. When someone yells “Go home!” in English to her face on the streets of Umeå, Minoo answers decidedly in the language of what she considers to be her home: “What? Are you talking to me? I can’t go home, I’m on my way to work.”44 Here Minoo’s choice is to engage 42

Ibid., 100. Ibid., 108: “Jag kunde inte tillräckligt bra svenska för att svara henne.” 44 Ibid., 109: “Va! Talar du med mig? Jag kan inte gå hem, jag är på väg till jobbet.” 43

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her attacker on their native ground – in their native tongue – despite the foreignness of both place and language to her. Minoo’s use of Swedish here is a conscious strategy, as her English has served her well in much more dangerous situations in Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. But talking back in Swedish is itself a claim to belonging – a performance of national belonging which strikes at the heart of the xenophobic assumption that a Middle-Easterner can neither speak Swedish, nor have a home in a city such as Umeå. A second example from Mahloujian is drawn from Minoo’s experiences travelling outside of Scandinavia. It is nearly the opposite of the confrontation described above: Men när jag åker till ett annat främmande land, är det plötsligt hem till Sverige jag längtar. Där har jag min bostad, mina vänner och mitt arbete .… Utomlands blir jag glad om jag efter bara några dagar hör folk som talar svenska på gatan. Jag får lust att tala svenska med dem. En sorts samhörighet som jag inte känner eller är medveten om när jag är i Sverige.45

For Minoo, the different environment of a foreign country – separate from both her Iranian roots as well as her adopted home – provides the necessary context for a sense of connection to Sweden. Crucially, it is through hearing Swedish – rather than seeing a person who looks Swedish, or who is behaving in a Swedish manner – which engages her unexpected desire to demonstrate her sense of fellowship with the speaker. The language, in its auditory dimension, transcends place, connecting Minoo with an aspect of her identity about which she evidently feels an unexpected pride. The random phrases she may overhear are the opposite of “Go home!” or “svartskalle” – they connect, rather than mark distance. That this connection occurs only in the “third space” of a country different from both Iran and Sweden is one of the many ironies of the exilic literature, not least De sönderrivna bilderna.

45

Ibid., 110: “But when I travel to a different foreign country, I suddenly long to be home in Sweden. There I have my apartment, my friends and my work .… While abroad I become happy if, after only a few days, I hear people speaking Swedish on the street. I am seized with the desire to speak Swedish with them. A kind of belonging that I do not feel, or am not conscious of, when I am in Sweden.”

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We may end our consideration of that book by noting that Mahloujian presents the final step in Minoo’s voyage to Sweden in terms of language. At the end of the narrative, Minoo decides to become Swedish “on paper”; that is, by seeking citizenship: Den första dagen jag blev svensk på papperet kändes som den första morgonen jag vaknade och upptäckte att jag hade drömt på svenska natten innan. Betydde det att jag hade tappat kontakten med persiska språket? Att jag hade blivit svensk?46

Minoo’s worries turn out to be unfounded: “I noticed later that my dream language swung between Swedish and Persian depending on which of the languages I used most during different periods.”47 To the very end of the tale, Mahloujian expresses Minoo’s conflicted feelings about exile, trans-nationalism and immigration in linguistic terms. That the narrative closes with themes of choice and control – the language of Minoo’s dreams mirroring which language she uses in daily life – can be taken as a sign of equilibrium in a long journey marked by hardship and powerlessness. It perhaps comes as no surprise that Kallifatides comes to more complex, and darker, conclusions. In Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster (A New Land Outside My Window, 2001), the narrator considers the overlapping allegiances his many years in Sweden have given him. Every linguistic act of self-definition seems to be contingent on audience and expectations. The result is a kind of paralysis, where every choice forces an unwilling betrayal: I det långa loppet drevs jag in i en hopplös känsla av utanförskap långt djupare än från början. Jag blev med andra ord mer främling än jag var. När jag kom hit var jag en främling på ett yttre plan, med tiden blev jag det också på ett inre .… Efter en tid i Sverige tyckte jag att det var obehagligt att tala grekiska med mina landsmän om svenskar var med .… Jag ville inte utmärka mig som en främling, medan andra nyanlända greker tvärtom 46

Ibid., 155: “The first day I became Swedish on paper felt like the first morning I woke up and discovered that I had dreamed in Swedish the night before. Did it mean that I had lost contact with the Persian language? That I had become Swedish?” 47 Ibid: “jag märkte senare att mitt drömspråk pendlade mellan svenska och persiska beroende på vilket av språken jag använde mest under olika perioder.”

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Peter Leonard tyckte att det var genant att inte tala grekiska med sina landsmän. Så hade jag också känt i början. Det var viktigt att inte bli en främling i mina landsmäns ögon, sedan blev det viktigt att inte vara en främling i svenskarnas ögon. Det slutade med att jag blev främling inför båda. Det var inte nog med det. Det fanns ett steg till, nämligen att bli främling inför sina egna ögon. Det ville jag inte, för jag visste vad det innebar.48

Kallifatides leaves this last point purposefully vague. What, precisely, would the consequences of becoming a stranger to oneself be? Have we returned here to the same fear the author confronted in the graveyard scene in Greece, where words lost their significance and the author is caught in a kind of aporia? For one so committed to language as both external, expressive act as well as an inwardly-directed expression of identity, Kallifatides is at his finest when describing the darkest part of the human condition: alienation from the self. That his writing can look into this abyss, without yielding to it, is part of what makes his authorship so compelling in chronicling the complexities and contradictions of exile. The struggle against collapse The writing of Behros, Kallifatides, Mahloujian, and others presents linguistic encounter, learning, and change in a heteroglossic context. Along the way, they engage issues of time, power, and identity. Often these texts follow a family through time to show the diachronic aspects of this encounter and change. We see in this 48 Theodor Kallifatides, Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster, Stockholm: Bonniers, 2001, 12: “In the long run I was drawn into a hopeless feeling of exclusion much deeper than in the beginning. I became, in other words, more foreign than I was. When I came here I was a stranger on the surface, with time I also became one on the inside .… After a while in Sweden I thought it was unpleasant to speak Greek with my countrymen if Swedes were present .… I didn’t want to mark myself as a foreigner, whereas other newly arrived Greeks thought conversely that it was embarrassing to not speak Greek with their countrymen. I had thought so too in the beginning. It was important not to be a stranger in the eyes of my countrymen, then it became important to not be a stranger in the eyes of Swedes. It ended with me becoming a stranger in the eyes of both. That wasn’t the end of it. There was one more step, namely to become a stranger in one’s own eyes. That I didn’t want to do, because I knew what it would mean.”

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intergenerational approach a kind of collapse of the long arc of time into a single moment. It may be a moment of conflict, such as when Ali scolds his children for speaking Swedish at the dinner table. Or it may be a moment of reconciliation, such as when Kicki Sjöqvist hears an echo of her father’s Greek at a stranger’s funeral. In either case, authors can relate longer narratives of linguistic change within a moment of the present by focusing on the relationship between family members. Characters in these works view the acquisition of Swedish variously: sometimes encountering the new language is depicted as a joy, sometimes a burden, and sometimes a functional necessity. Yet in each of these cases, the question of power is never far from the surface: power in spheres public, private, and intimate. Kallifatides wrote joyously of eating up Swedish words “like pralines”, and of the art of seduction in a second language. Yet he also wrote of the legal risks of staying in a country in which he could be accused of a crime and unable to defend himself. The first word Minoo learns is a derogatory term for immigrants, and she must master the tongue to consider herself prepared to verbally defend herself on the street. And for Odysseas, Swedish is a language he must learn at a minimal level to function in his job as a skilled mechanic. As joy, burden, or necessity, characters meet the new language individually, yet also in the context of a hierarchical society in which the immigrant is disadvantaged. A common theme is the struggle to maintain identity in the context of a new language. This struggle goes to the root of the question that Kallifatides asked – “what kind of person we think we are” – and is one of particular import for characters who have experienced transnational migration and must now express their identity in a new tongue. Odysseas in Det sista ljuset can only imagine being a “father” in Greek, but in professional interactions has no choice but to use his few words of Swedish. Yet such a workaday relationship to the new language will not always suffice: Kallifatides’ other writing, much of which could be characterized as autobiographical, is obsessed with the problems of expressing the self in a new tongue. Thus the crisis during the reburial of the father in Greece: will grav ever mean as much as tafos? So, too, the fear of Minoo’s after acquiring Swedish citizenship: will that language colonize her dreams? Has her subconscious lost its

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ability to express itself in Farsi? These are questions of a character’s essential identity, and the cohesion of that identity in new contexts and circumstances. The struggle for that internal cohesion – as well as the ability to express that cohesion to others – is the significance of this generation of Swedish literature.

THE RHYTHM OF HIP HOP: MULTI-ETHNIC SLANG IN SWEDISH LITERATURE AFTER 2000 WOLFGANG BEHSCHNITT

This article deals with literary interventions into the negotiations about multi-ethnic youth language in Sweden. It focuses on the interplay of literature, hip hop music, and discourses on language in public media. My point of departure is the great attention to multicultural literature, and especially to some authors’ literary language received in Swedish media. In his contribution to this volume, Magnus Nilsson shows the degree to which critical reception in the case of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s successful novel Ett öga rött (One Eye Red, 2003) has directed its attention to the novel’s literary language. He also discusses the widely spread idea that the reader could experience the thrill of authentic multi-ethnic slang by listening to the voice of the novel’s hero, a thought that certainly has contributed to the fascination of the book for the middle-class reading public.1 But it can also be argued that, conversely, the use of multiethnic youth language in literary texts has contributed to the rise in status for this group language or “Rinkebyswedish”,2 as it has been colloquially named.3 That literature has contributed in an obvious way to the debate about the use and the status of different language varieties in Sweden has been observed both by literary critics and linguists.4 The aim of this article is to deepen the discussion about the 1

See Magnus Nilsson’s contribution to this volume “Literature in Multicultural and Multilingual Sweden: The Birth and Death of the Immigrant Writer”. 2 Rinkeby is a Stockholm suburb, considered to be an immigrant ghetto. 3 Wolfgang Behschnitt, “The Voice of the ‘Real Migrant’: Contemporary Migration Literature in Sweden”, in Migration and Literature in Contemporary Europe, eds Mirjam Gebauer and Pia Schwarz Lausten, Munich: Meidenbauer, 2010, 85. 4 Monica Gomér, ”shu len, vad händish”: En analys av multietniskt ungdomsspråk i Alejandro Leiva Wengers novell Borta i tankar, Specialarbete, Gothenburg University:

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role of literature in such negotiations by a triangulation in which literary and public discourse on language are complemented by a third factor: hip hop music and its use of language. Already the first appearance of multi-ethnic youth language in Swedish literature, in Alejandro Leiva Wenger’s collection of short stories Till vår ära (To Our Honour, 2001), clearly marks the relation to hip hop music and more specifically to the band The Latin Kings. Their members are descendants of Latin American immigrants, and the band has been prominent in Sweden since 1994 when they released their first album with the programmatic title Välkommen till förorten (Welcome to the Suburb).5 The first story in Leiva Wenger’s book makes an explicit intertextual reference to The Latin Kings: its title “Borta i tankar” (“Absent-minded”) corresponds to the title of a song on the album. Since then, references to The Latin Kings in literature considered multicultural have been notably frequent. In these literary texts, The Latin Kings and their music function as symbol of a young, multi-ethnic, and multilingual suburban culture and, at the same time, as a marker of cultural affiliation. Moreover, the invitation announced in the song “Welcome to the suburb” was accepted not only by young people with non-Swedish backgrounds, but also by a wider public, the educated middle class, which through literature hoped to find their way to suburban culture. Naturally, middle-class readers and suburban youths perceived the message of “Welcome to the suburb” in different ways: young suburbdwellers accepted it as an invitation to feel at home – and proudly at home – at a place imagined both as a topographic location in the periphery of the city and as a place for identity constitution. In fact, The Latin Kings seemed to offer a symbolic space where a desire for recognition, fostered by many who felt confined to a peripheral space in society, could be transformed into a collective identity. This Institute for Swedish, 2008, 18-19. Olle Josephson, Ju. Ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige, Stockholm: Norstedts Ordbok, 2004, 64. Peter Leonard, “Sweden’s Swedishest Words: Verbal Hygiene on the Periphery of the Nation”, 2006, 4-5 and 22: http://students.washington.edu/pl212 /swedish_words.pdf (accessed 31 August 2010). 5 The Swedish usage of “förort” (“suburb”) in this context and generally within multicultural discourse implies just the idea of ghetto. In this it differs from the American “suburb” as middle-class idyll (cf. Leonard, “Sweden’s Swedishest Words”, n. 5).

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identity is the identity of the “blatte”, a denomination for immigrants and their descendants comparable to the terms beur in France, Kanake in Germany, or wog in Britain. The literary texts that describe growing up in the Swedish suburb present the music of the The Latin Kings in several instances as a passage of initiation: a step from childhood to adult life, to a new self-perception, a new identity. It is astonishing, indeed, how often The Latin Kings are mentioned as a marker for such an initiation, as my discussion of some examples will demonstrate. The invitation pronounced by The Latin Kings was accepted by the cultural establishment as well: a highly educated middle class who felt attracted by the exotic other world of the immigrant ghetto. Magnus Nilsson has described the eagerness and overwhelmingly positive response with which “migrant literature” and “migrant culture” were greeted at a historical moment when Sweden had adapted a perception of itself as a multicultural society. This article is based on the assumption that the language used by The Latin Kings, multi-ethnic youth language, has contributed strongly to their success and to the public interest in multi-ethnic youth culture. The many intertextual references to The Latin Kings in literary texts suggest that it might also have prepared the use of multiethnic youth language in literature. I will first report shortly on multiethnic youth language and its place in Swedish society from a sociolinguistic point of view. Then I will take up two literary texts – Leiva Wenger’s “Borta i tankar” and Johannes Anyuru’s poems Det är bara gudarna som är nya (Only the Gods Are New, 2003) – and analyse both their relation to The Latin Kings and their use of multiethnic youth language. Finally, I will explore the ways in which this language has been discussed more generally in Swedish society and the contribution of literature to this discussion. The symbolic capital of multi-ethnic youth language in Swedish society Multi-ethnic youth language, or “Rinkebyswedish”, is a variety of Swedish the emergence of which was first discussed in the 1980s by Ulla-Britt Kotsinas, an expert on immigrant Swedish as well as on slang and sociolects.6 “Rinkebyswedish” is a phenomenon comparable to Dutch “straat taal” or Danish “perkerdansk”. It is considered a 6

Ullabritt Kotsinas, Invandrarsvenska, Uppsala: Hallgren and Fallgren, 2005.

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group language and was originally ascribed to young people with migrant background in the suburbs.7 Olle Josephson indicates that the term actually overarches a number of local varieties which developed in various immigrant areas.8 It is important to observe that multiethnic youth language is, contrary to popular belief, not a restricted code; rather, it is a variety language users choose from a repertoire of several available language options corresponding to certain situations. In Joshua A. Fishman’s terms, we can speak of a linguistic situation characterized by both bilingualism and diglossia.9 Thus, the speakers of multi-ethnic youth language have a multilingual competence, a fact highlighted in literary texts as well. This is not the place to engage in a discussion of the grammatical and lexical traits of multi-ethnic youth language. Instead, I want to reflect on its status in Swedish society and the way it is constructed in discourses about languages in Sweden. Christopher Stroud has studied “Rinkebyswedish” from a sociological perspective, and describes it as an ideological construction in order to place its users in opposition to Swedish society. He maintains that this as well as other terms for immigrant codes … are cultural constructions which lend certain significations to immigrants’ and Swedes’ language resources and uses. Those who are categorized as … speakers of Rinkebyswedish are ascribed certain socioeconomically defined identities. The social, moral, and political significations linked to these representations of immigrants’ ways of speaking situate them in Swedish society in a social hierarchy of 7

See Kari Fraurud and Ellen Bijvoet, “Multietniskt ungdomsspråk och andra varieteter av svenska i flerspråkiga miljöer”, in Svenska som andraspråk, eds K. Hyltenstam and I. Lindberg, Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2004, 400-401. 8 Josephson, Ju. Ifrågasatta självklarheter, 64. It is important to distinguish multiethnic youth language from other language varieties found in the context of migration and language contact: neither does it correspond to the incorrect or “broken” Swedish of second language learners nor can it be described as a sociolect. It is not a sociolect since it is much more than only social affiliation that determines the language community. Neither is it a pidgin or creole language: both are contact languages, based on a blending of different languages, and thus not a variety of one dominating language (Fraurud and Bijvoet, “Multietniskt ungdomsspråk”, 402). 9 Joshua A. Fishman, “Bilingualism with and without Diglossia; Diglossia with and without Bilingualism”, in The Bilingualism Reader, ed. Li Wei, London and New York: Routledge, 2000, 82-83. Elien Declercq and Michael Boyden, “Multilingualism and Diglossia in Migration Literature”, in this volume.

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unequal power structures with countless political and social ramifications.10

Stroud speaks, in Bourdieu’s terminology, of symbolic capital connected to linguistic varieties that enables people to participate in certain sections of the language market in a speech community. The symbolic capital of a linguistic variety, however, can change, and the stereotypes linked to these varieties can be questioned.11 This is what has happened in the case of multi-ethnic youth language in Sweden. In the beginning, multi-ethnic youth language was clearly stigmatized: “it was perceived as a ghetto version of Swedish used by immigrants, as a result of insufficient exposition to richer networks of native speakers.”12 But already at the end of the 1990s, it was noted that the variety had not only spread to young people without foreign backgrounds, but had even become fashionable. This development is mirrored by research on attitudes towards multi-ethnic youth language among its original speakers. Kari Fraurud and Ellen Bijvoet report from a series of interviews conducted in autumn 2000: “Some of the informants showed a negative attitude towards the fact that the variety now, as a result of the growing popularity of rap music, had begun to spread to youth who were not rooted in the multilingual districts of the cities, wannabees.”13 Three years after these interviews, in the aftermath of Khemiri’s Ett öga rött and its enthusiastic reception, we can observe a similar attitude in the debate about the literary adaption of multi-ethnic youth language: “They take our words”,14 was the header of a polemic by journalist Ali Fegan against the appropriation of slang words by the cultural establishment and its literary exploitation:

10

Christopher Stroud, “Halvspråkighet och Rinkebysvenska som språkideologiska begrepp”, in Svenska som andraspråk, 331. This and all other translations from Swedish are my own, unless otherwise stated. 11 Ibid., 332. 12 Ibid., 340. 13 Fraurud and Bijvoet, “Multietniskt ungdomsspråk”, 403. 14 Ali Fegan, “De tar våra ord”, arena, 5 (2004).

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Wolfgang Behschnitt Jag har hört personer som bor i förorten säga att Hassen Khemiri är fejk .… De har stört sig på att här kommer en södermalmsblatte från Handels och snyltar på deras kultur.15

The phrase “De tar våra ord” is a quote and reference to The Latin Kings. In the song “Shonnar vet” (“The Guys Know”, 2003), the band shakes a fist against apparent imitators: “If you take our style, buddy…, if you take our words, buddy…”16 Language is here treated as a property, words as valuable goods which have to be protected from unauthorized use. It is no mere coincidence that this debate takes off at a moment when the diffusion of multi-ethnic youth language in national media is already a fact and when at least individual words such as “keff” (“bad, busted”) and “guss” (“girl”) are on their way to becoming in common circulation, thanks to, among others, Khemiri, Leiva Wenger, and The Latin Kings. A couple of years later these words were enlisted into the Svenska Akademins ordlista (The Swedish Academy’s Glossary). From a sociolinguistic perspective, the clear hierarchical and functional differentiation between slang and standard Swedish is questioned. But before I elaborate on the language debate concerning multi-ethnic youth language in Sweden, I will discuss the specific interrelations between literature and hip hop in more detail. The Latin Kings, literature, and language As already mentioned, The Latin Kings are virtually omnipresent in the Swedish discourse on multiculturalism.17 To understand their 15

Ibid., 43: “I have heard people who live in the suburb say that Hassen Khemiri is a fake .… They are irritated by the fact that there comes a blatte [a wog] from Södermalm, who attended the Stockholm School of Economics, and swipes their culture.” – Södermalm is one of Stockholm’s attractive central districts which has become fashionable among the well-educated middle class. 16 “Om du tar våran stil kompis…, om du tar våra ord kompis…” (The Latin Kings, Texter, Uppsala: Ruin, 2004, 99). 17 In addition to the examples I analyse in this article, Marianeh Bakhtiari’s novel Kalla det vad fan du vill (Stockholm: Ordfront, 2005) also refers to The Latin Kings as a marker of identity, though in a more ironic mode (36). It must be said, though, that there are more linkages between hip hop and literature in Swedish culture than those by way of The Latin Kings. Daniel Boyacioglu is one of the poets who, like Anyuru, freely moves between slam, hip hop, and poetry. His first volume of poetry, published in 2003, was actually titled Istället för hiphop (Instead of Hip Hop). His

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relevance, it is instructive to take a look at the collection of their lyrics, published as a book in 2004. First, it is significant with respect to the canonization of the band and their prominent position in the cultural field that their texts have been published at all in the conventional form of a book, “with support from the Swedish Academy” as the editorial note reveals.18 Secondly, the framing is interesting: the paratexts accompanying the lyrics. These are introduced by a Preface written by the young poet Johannes Anyuru, while the book concludes with a glossary of slang words. The Preface proclaims the unmistakable literary value of the song texts. It also talks about their cultural impact, but their literary qualities are mentioned first: Det är på tiden att Latin Kings texter kommer ut i bokform, inte bara därför att de bär på en inneboende poesi som håller för boksidan, utan också därför att de är en del av Sveriges litteraturhistoria på samma sätt som Bob Dylans eller Public Enemys lyrik är en del av den amerikanska litteraturen: de har upptagits i den samling historier, bilder och legender som en generation bär med sig och har att ta ställning till, och – vilket kanske är ännu viktigare – de har vidgat den osynliga ramen som finns i varje samhälle, den som avgör vad som är värt och tillåtet att berätta, och hur.19

poetic idiom bears great similarity to the free-floating and playful, rhythmic and musical language of hip hop. Multi-ethnic youth language belongs to his repertoire, as well. Thematically, he also engages in the internal divides of Swedish society, between the multi-ethnic suburb and the Swedish majority. Still, Boyacioglu’s works have not received the same critical attention as Anyuru’s, Bakhtiari’s, Khemiri’s, or Leiva Wenger’s; neither have they been named in the debates about the status and role of multi-ethnic youth language. Consequently, I do not discuss Boyacioglu’s poetry in this article. However, determining more precisely the reasons for his marginal position in these debates could be interesting with respect to the structures and valorizations in Swedish culture. 18 The Latin Kings, Texter, 160. 19 Johannes Anyuru, “Vi får leva här”, in ibid., 8: ” It is about time that Latin Kings’ texts were published in a book, not only because they carry an inner poetry which is not lost on the printed page, but also because they are a part of Sweden’s literary history in the same way as Bob Dylan’s or Public Enemy’s lyrics are part of American literature: they have been integrated into the collection of stories, pictures, and legends which a generation carries along and must take a stand about, and – what may be still more important – they have broadened the invisible frame which exists in every society and decides what is worth and allowed to be told, and in what way.”

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Then, in a quite provocative move, the Preface puts The Latin Kings side by side with one of the most recognized and canonical authors of Swedish modernist poetry: Göran Sonnevi. I will not discuss similarities and differences between Sonnevi and The Latin Kings. What I want to show is the effort to augment the band’s symbolic capital and to situate them in the canon of Swedish culture – be it popular (see the comparison with Bob Dylan and Public Enemy) or serious literature (Sonnevi). Consequently, Anyuru’s argument continues: “I believe that one of Latin Kings’ greatest merits lies in their Swedishness.”20 What Anyuru aspires, very clearly, in his Preface is a rewriting of the Swedish canon by establishing analogies between canonical Swedish literature and The Latin Kings. To make such a proposition, which may not seem evident to anybody fostering a more traditional notion of Swedish identity and the national heritage, the author of the Preface must be in a certain discursive position and possess the necessary symbolic capital. Johannes Anyuru, indeed, has acquired such a position. He is one of the young writers greeted with enthusiasm as a representative of second-generation immigrants. His first collection of poetry Det är bara gudarna som är nya (2003) received a lot of acclaim, and it applied the same strategy of rewriting the author later used in The Latin Kings Preface. The poems follow a modernistic tradition, which has a strong standing in the Swedish literary canon, Göran Sonnevi being one of its main representatives. Yet they also establish a strong intertextual link to Homer’s Iliad, one of the most renowned and symbolically charged texts of the Western Canon. Anyuru transforms the wrathful Achilles into a character of identification for the angry young men in the multi-ethnic suburb. If we read Anyuru’s Preface together with his own poems we can observe a very efficient transfer of symbolic capital: from the Iliad and Sonnevi to his poems and further to The Latin Kings. Moreover, Anyuru’s poems are a major example of those literary texts that refer explicitly to The Latin Kings. In the long central poem “Svart neon” (“Black Neon”), Anyuru establishes a direct link between The Latin Kings and Achilles. He puts side by side a

20

“Jag tror att en av Latin Kings största förtjänster ligger i deras svenskhet” (ibid., 9).

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quotation from The Latin Kings’ song “Snubben” (“The Guy”) and one from the Iliad:21 “snubben trodde han var cool”, “bekymmerslös fått sitta vid skeppen” 22

Later in the same poem, the author evokes a moment of initiation, a typical gesture for this young multicultural literature that in some ways can be read as a postmodern version of the Bildungsromanmodel:23 Jag är femton sexton år här, just här. ... ur stereon hör jag rytmen, den nya hårda rytmen: Dogge kommer från Alby.24

The “new, hard rhythm” of hip hop kicks off for the adolescent boy a feeling of cultural affiliation to multi-ethnic suburban culture, represented in the words “Dogge” and “Alby”. Dogge Doggelito is The Latin Kings’ lead singer. His role is extremely interesting in a history of discourse on multiculturalism and multi-ethnic youth language in Sweden and will be discussed later. Alby is, like Rinkeby, one of Stockholm’s ghetto suburbs.

21 “Snubben” was released on the first album Välkommen till förorten (1994), Anyuru quotes the chorus line of this well-known song; the second quote, “bekymmerslös fått sitta vid skeppen”, is Achilles’ mother Thetis lamenting her son’s destiny in the Iliad’s 1st song (English Iliad translation by Ian Johnston 2008; http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/homer/iliad1.htm [accessed 8 November 2009]). 22 Johannes Anyuru, Det är bara gudarna som är nya, Stockholm: Wahlström and Widstrand, 2003, 36: “the guy thought he was cool”, “would you were safely by your ships dry-eyed”. 23 Wolfgang Behschnitt and Thomas Mohnike, “Bildung und Alteritätskonstruktion in der jüngsten schwedischen Migrantenliteratur”, in bildung und anderes: Alterität in Bildungsdiskursen in den skandinavischen Literaturen, eds Christiane Barz and Wolfgang Behschnitt, Würzburg: Ergon, 2006. 24 Anyuru, Det är bara gudarna som är nya, 49: “I’m fifteen sixteen years here, precisely here. / … from the stereo I hear the rhythm, the new, hard / rhythm: / Dogge comes from Alby.”

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The initiation motif is repeated in The Latin Kings Preface, where Anyuru indulges in melancholic reveries about his first meeting with The Latin Kings’ music: Den sommaren – jag måste ha gått i femman eller sexan – lyssnade vi på Latin Kings på F’s lilla bandare när vi spelade basket bakom skolan hela dagarna: från det att vi vaknade runt klockan tolv ända tills det blev för mörkt för att skjuta långskott. Och någonting var för alltid annorlunda efteråt ….25

Anyuru does not comment explicitly on The Latin Kings’ language, neither in the Preface nor in his poems. Nevertheless, multilingualism and language use in the suburbs is a relevant dimension of his poems both on the level of theme and literary language. In several instances he inserts quotes from multi-ethnic youth language (as well as from English, Greek, Arabic, and other languages) in his text. His textual bilingualism works in precisely the way Boyden and Declerq describe,26 in so far as it makes different “voices” noticeable in the text. But Anyuru also comments explicitly on the language situation in the suburb in the beginning of the first long poem of the volume, “Tid: en sång om Trojas murar” (“Time: a Song about Troy’s Walls”): Man hör inga svenska ord här: till och med araberna har lärt sig att skrika Mira! Mira! 27

Anyuru’s Preface and the references to The Latin Kings in his poetry give one example of how the hip hop band is inserted into the circuit of Swedish national culture and mainstream literature; the band 25 Anyuru, “Vi får leva här”, 7: ” That summer – I must have attended the fifth or sixth grade – we listened to The Latin Kings on F’s small recorder when we played basketball behind the school all day: from when we woke up around 12 until it became too dark to shoot long shots. And something was changed forever afterwards ....“ 26 Declercq and Boyden, “Multilingualism and Diglossia in Migration Literature”, in this volume, p. 25. 27 Anyuru, Det är bara gudarna som är nya, 14: ” You don’t hear any Swedish words here: / even the Arabs have learnt / to yell / Mira! Mira!” – The insertion of the Spanish “Mira!” [“Look!”] gives an example of textual bilingualism.

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is invested with symbolic capital, while at the same time the poet profits from another currency of symbolic capital: the kind The Latin Kings have acquired in the field of popular and youth culture. Anyuru consciously challenges traditional concepts of national heritage and the Western canon in a way which clearly amounts to a politics of recognition, the shaping of suburb identity, and also appropriates parts of the cultural heritage in order to rewrite it and undermine hegemonic discourses. This way, Anyuru’s strategy corresponds neatly to what Stuart Hall describes as one of the ways multicultural literature works in relation to the idea of the national heritage.28 Anyuru was not the first one to use the language of the suburbs in literature to inscribe it into a canonized literary context. Already Alejandro Leiva Wenger’s Till vår ära mentioned earlier, and its literary use of multi-ethnic youth language have received an enthusiastic reception. A critic writes: Många har väntat på det. Nu sker det. “Rinkebysvenskan” har fått sin första starka litterära stämma, och den kommer från en 25-åring med uppväxt i en stockholmsförort men med rötterna i Chile.29

Leiva Wenger’s stories, however, demonstrate clearly that this language is not, as this critic supposes, the authentic voice of the author but a conscious literary strategy. As in the case of Khemiri’s Ett öga rött (One Eye Red), discussed in detail by Nilsson in this volume, it is crucial to avoid the misunderstanding that the language of the narrative be an authentic representation of suburb reality. On the contrary, Leiva Wenger makes a point of using different voices and registers in every single story, moving on a scale from pure standard Swedish to distinct slang. In the story “Elixir”, which comes closest to the illusion of authentic youth language, he constructs a first person narrator with strong deficiencies in respect to grammar, vocabulary, and spelling, thus forming the image of a prototypical 28

See our discussion of Stuart Hall and the term “multicultural literature” in Behschnitt and Nilsson, “‘Multicultural literatures’ in a comparative perspective”, in this volume, p. 10. 29 Inger Alestig, “Svindlande texter av debuterande naturbegåvning”, in Dagen, 11 April 2002: ”Many have been waiting. Now it’s happening. “Rinkebyswedish” gets its first strong literary voice, and it belongs to a 25-year-old, grown up in a Stockholm suburb but with roots in Chile.”

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suburban kid with a migrant background. This experimentation with different literary languages can be understood as a demonstration of the author’s literary and linguistic skills: one who writes such a multifaceted prose does not use slang for want of better language skills. They use slang strategically in order to establish it – or even ennoble it – as a literary language.30 This too has been acknowledged in the critical reception of Leiva Wenger’s book. The critic in Svenska Dagbladet praises Leiva Wenger’s literary appropriation of multi-ethnic youth language as “sensitive and inventive” and compares it to the language use of canonized authors like Sara Lidman and Stig Claesson, who in the 1960s and 1970s introduced regional dialects and Stockholm slang into Swedish literature. He also assumes that Leiva Wenger’s short stories will become canonized as classroom reading. Moreover, he observes the ways in which music, literature, and language are interrelated: Att läsa debutanten Alejandro Leiva Wengers novellsamling Till vår ära känns i det avseendet som en befrielse: här riktas strålkastaren mot betongförorten på samma självklara sätt som inom svensk hip hop, vilket för övrigt är den konstnärliga uttrycksform som ligger närmast till hands om man vill beskriva Leiva Wengers skrivsätt, mättat som 31 det är med en förortsslang som är obegriplig för folk över 30.

The relation to hip hop music and more specifically to The Latin Kings is most obvious in the first story “Borta i tankar”. Not only does the title refer to their music (as already noted), the narrator quotes The Latin Kings on several occasions and speaks, in much the same way as Anyuru in his Preface, about their relevance as a marker of identity and affiliation.

30 Thomas Mohnike, “Doppelte Fremdheit”, in Der Norden im Ausland – das Ausland im Norden, ed. Sven Hakon Rossel, Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2006, 152. 31 Johan Lundberg, “Novelldebut som skapar sug efter en roman”, Svenska Dagbladet, 29 October 2001: ”To read the debutant Alejandro Leiva Wenger’s collection of short stories, Till vår ära, feels liberating: here, the spotlight is turned on the suburb in the same obvious way as in Swedish hip hop, which by the way is the artistic expression most adequate to describe Leiva Wenger’s literary style, saturated as it is with suburb slang, incomprehensible for people over 30.”

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“Borta i tankar” is narrated in a very complex manner. To a large extent, it displays a stream of consciousness while employing, at the same time, a multitude of sophisticated narrative techniques known from modernist prose. In the same way as Anyuru’s poems, it ties in with the strong modernist tradition in Swedish literary history. The story is characterized by the limited perspective of an unreliable narrator, a multiply broken chronology, oscillating subject positions, and a disorderly spatial structure. The blending of different language varieties (multi-ethnic youth language versus standard Swedish) is just one element in the labyrinthine narrative representing the narrator’s bewilderment and insecurity. The plot, however, is based on quite simple oppositions: the young protagonist’s conflicting affiliations and loyalties, the split between multi-ethnic suburb and mono-ethnic central Stockholm, and between the street gang and the narrator’s Swedish middle-class girlfriend. In this context, the reference to The Latin Kings is important because they represent very clearly the narrator’s suburb affiliation. In a central passage, two narrative threads are presented simultaneously: the narrator’s attempt to explain his behaviour to his girlfriend, obviously the representation of a telephone call, is interpolated by a memory of the suburb friends listening to The Latin Kings: ... abou, abou, få kolla len, är det deras andra? Nico visar och dom kollar, sen dom går hem till Nico och lyssnar, eh håll käften, höj, vad säger han, Dogge och Boastin i den fetaste kombinationen håller sej till hiphoptraditionen ...32

In this scene, the experience of hip hop is connected very clearly to identity and group affiliation. In the other narrative thread, the phone call, the narrator tells his girlfriend how the gang put the loudspeakers out on the balcony and engaged in a “music war” against a hard rock fan in the neighbourhood: “BUT BOLLEN WASN’T SHY, YOU KNOW, HE 32

Alejandro Leiva Wenger, Till vår ära, Stockholm: Bonniers, 2001, 13: ”… wow, may I look, is it their second? Nico shows and they look, then they go home to Nico and listen, eh shut up, raise, what does he say, Dogge and Boastin in the hottest combination stick to the hip hop tradition …”. – The quote (in italics) is from the song “Passamicken”, released on The Latin Kings’ second album I skuggan av betongen (In the Shadow of the Concrete, 1997).

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RAISED IT TO THE MAX, SO HE FUCKED THE WHOLE VÅRBERG.”

Another scene confirms that hip hop music functions as a symbol for group affiliation: when the protagonist-narrator changes from the suburban school to a middle-class school in central Stockholm, his friends start considering him a renegade. This conflict is expressed in terms of competing types of music as well. His brother comments the change to the new school: “Are you going to be a Söder guy, greetings to Petter.”34 “Petter” is a Swedish hip hop artist from the middle-class district Södermalm. It is interesting to note how music in both instances is used as a marker of cultural affiliation.35 Thus, music is one dimension of the binary structure underlying the whole story. But in contrast to the other dimensions (space, personal relations), where there is a balance between the contrasting elements, The Latin Kings are clearly dominating the narrative. They not only win the music war, but the whole story relies in a fundamental way on their song “Borta i tankar”, in which the representation of a confused consciousness is the central subject. Multi-ethnic youth language in academic and public discourse The previous sections have touched three interrelated developments in Swedish society since the 1990s: the spread and growth in popularity of The Latin Kings’ hip hop music, a certain type of literature considered “young” and “multicultural”, and multi-ethnic youth language. I have elaborated in more detail the interrelations between literature and The Latin Kings, arguing that the literary texts make use of hip hop not only to root themselves in suburban culture and take advantage of the symbolic capital the band has acquired in this cultural field but at the same time contribute to introduce The Latin Kings and their language into another cultural circuit dominated by a well-educated Swedish middle-class readership. 33

“MEN BOLLEN VAR INTE BLYG DU VET, HAN HÖJDE TILL MAX SÅ HAN KNULLADE HELA VÅRBERG” (ibid., 14). 34

“Ska du bli Södergrabb, hälsa Petter” (ibid., 14). Thanks to Jeroen De Roeck, who directed my attention to the opposition of The Latin Kings and Petter in Leiva Wenger’s story. 35 Leiva Wenger is not the only one to use music as cultural marker. In “Swedish ‘Immigrant-Literature’ and the Construction of Ethnicity”, Magnus Nilsson mentions several examples from Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s novel Kalla det vad fan du vill (Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek, XXXI/1 (2010), 206-207 and 213).

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It is more difficult, however, to assess precisely in which way and to which degree literature has contributed to the popularization of multi-ethnic youth language. Obviously, a large variety of social, political, media, and linguistic factors influence the scope and status of such a group language. I have mentioned earlier that multi-ethnic youth language started to become popular among young people without a suburban background already in the 1990s, that is years before the publication of Leiva Wenger’s and Anyuru’s books. Still, it is possible to show a number of instances where literature directly or indirectly has had an obvious impact on the public discourse of multiethnic youth language. This last section presents an analysis of four such instances in order to give a clearer picture of the interrelations within the discursive field. First, there is the critical reception of the literary texts and the attention dedicated to the appearance of what is conceived as multiethnic youth language in these texts. I have given a couple of examples where critics of Leiva Wenger’s Till vår ära hail “Rinkebyswedish” as a new literary idiom. In his article in this present volume, Nilsson analyses the reception of the language in Khemiri’s Ett öga rött.36 He shows that the literary use of multi-ethnic youth language has been received with great interest or even enthusiasm. This mode of reception is actually mirrored in the literary texts themselves: Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s novel Kalla det vad fan du vill contains a metaliterary reflection giving an ironic portrait of the eagerness of the middle-class reader to become acquainted with multiethnic slang: one of the characters is described as “one who read books written in ‘broken Swedish’, ‘new Swedish’, ‘blatte Swedish’ and various types of ‘suburb Swedish’”37 in order to improve her communication skills in the multicultural society. A similar type appears in Bakhtiari’s second novel Kan du säga schibbolet? (Can You Say Shibbolet?, 2008), a Swedish woman praising Khemiri’s Ett öga rött: “... extremely nice language in that book. Precisely as young

36

A detailed account of the reception of Ett öga rött’s language is to be found in Roger Källström, “‘Flygande blattesvenska’ – recensenter om språket i Ett öga rött”, Svenskans beskrivning, XXVIII (2006), 125-35. 37 Bakhtiari, Kalla det vad fan du vill, 168: “den som läste böcker skrivna på ‘bruten svenska’, ‘nysvenska’, ‘blattesvenska’ och olika typer av ‘förortssvenska’.”

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people talk today.”38 That literary language was often mistaken for authentic slang, however, does not change the fact, that literature has made multi-ethnic youth language visible (and audible) in a cultural field where it had not been present before. In 2006, the presence of multi-ethnic youth language in public discourse further increased when the Swedish Academy decided to include a couple of slang words in the official Svenska Akademins ordlista. This fact raised quite some debate and critical comments. As Peter Leonard points out, none of the several thousand new entries included in the glossary triggered nearly as much attention as the slang words “guss” (“girl”) and “keff” (“bad, busted”).39 More interesting than the debate about the Swedishness of multi-ethnic youth language in the context of this anthology is the role of literature. The Swedish Academy’s Glossary is not normative, but descriptive, and is based on statistics, that is, on the usage of words in printed material as books, magazines, and newspapers. As it is not the colloquial (oral) use of slang but its distribution by print media which forms the basis for the Academy’s decision, it is fully plausible to ascribe to these literary publications, including their extensive media reception, a major impact. Leonard concludes: Only the publication of Leiva Wenger’s, Anyuru’s, and Khemiri’s books, by mainstream Swedish publishing houses, set the complex processes of reception, review and critique into motion which ensured widespread media attention to a subset of Rinkeby Swedish, which in turn coincided with the timeframe for the Swedish Academy’s next volume of words.40

A third, less direct way to influence the discourse on multi-ethnic youth language is through the introduction of The Latin Kings and their lyrics into the realm of literature, their ennoblement as part of the national literary heritage. I have earlier pointed to the significance of the media form, the book, in which the The Latin Kings’ lyrics were published and which contributes to the insertion of the song texts into the cultural circuit of serious literature. Multi-ethnic youth language is 38

Marjaneh Bakhtiari, Kan du säga schibbolet?, Stockholm: Ordfront, 2008, 383: “... jättekul språk i boken. Precis som ungdomarna pratar nuförtiden.” 39 Leonard, “Sweden’s Swedishest Words”, 2-3. 40 Ibid., 22.

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highlighted in this book in several complementing ways. It is associated with more genuine forms of suburban youth culture: slang words in graffiti embellish the margins of the pages next to the orderly printed song texts. At the same time, it is treated in a pedagogical manner by the concluding glossary which offers translations of a little more than a hundred words belonging to multi-ethnic youth language. The glossary indicates, once again, that the book addresses a broad public which is not (or not fully) acquainted with suburb slang. This affirms the hypothesis that the book aims to secure The Latin Kings’ establishment in Swedish mainstream culture. In the same year The Latin Kings’ lyrics were published, in 2004, Christopher Stroud discussed the function of such glossaries as typical examples of “contact zones” between different cultures.41 He mentions, firstly, that many articles on “Rinkebyswedish” at that time comprised such a glossary: a proof of the broad interest in multiethnic youth language in Sweden.42 Secondly, he states that Dogge Doggelito, The Latin Kings’ lead singer, had by then emerged as the most prominent mediator between the cultural spheres and as an authority on Rinkebyswedish. In fact, Stroud’s article seems to anticipate the dictionary Förortsslang (Suburb Slang) which was also published in 2004.43 It appeared at one of Sweden’s leading publishing houses, Norstedts, and was actually co-edited by Dogge and – importantly for its status – Ulla-Britt Kotsinas, one of the leading scholarly authorities on multi-ethnic youth language in Sweden. Feeling the necessity to explain this rather unusual kind of coeditorship, the editors include a longer paragraph in the introduction throwing light on their early acquaintance. In 1988, Kotsinas had done field research in the Alby secondary school, where Dogge was a student at the time. A more regular collaboration started at the occasion of Stockholm’s 750th anniversary in 2002, when Dogge was asked to give a lecture on youth language in the city’s suburbs and asked Kotsinas to join him.44 That the rapper should contribute to such 41

Stroud, “Halvspråkighet och Rinkebysvenska”, 344. One example is the Aftonbladet’s article on Stockholm slang (10 September 2001: http://wwwc.aftonbladet.se/stockholm/0003/15/slang.html). 43 Dogge Doggelito and Ulla-Britt Kotsinas, Förortsslang, Stockholm: Norstedts ordbok, 2004. 44 The lecture with the title “Hajar du fett?” (“Do you understand?”) was held by Dogge and Kotsinas in Stockholm’s town hall on 3 June 2002. The lecture was 42

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a solemn event underscores Stroud’s remark about his prominence and acknowledged authority in any suburban slang context, and seems to confirm the close interrelation and apparent permeability between different cultural fields and discourses in Sweden. Dogge’s growing authority, his transgression of (sub-)cultural borders, and the augmentation of his symbolic capital in mainstream discourse about language and culture is paralleled by the growing interest in multi-ethnic youth language, its proliferation from suburbs to mainstream, its growing symbolic capital, and its social status. Dogge appears as a personalized “nodal point”,45 connecting and stabilizing different discourses (hip hop, literary, and academic) on multi-ethnic youth language. He authorizes and authenticates these discourses thereby contributing to their impact on the public perception and appreciation of the variety. Finally, the authors themselves, rather than their literary texts at several instances, became involved in debates about multi-ethnic slang and its relation to Swedish as the national language. I have shown in more detail how Johannes Anyuru uses his authority and symbolic capital as an author to inscribe The Latin Kings’ lyrics into the literary canon. Language, here, is not the main issue, but it is included indirectly when Anyuru hails The Latin Kings for their impact on the collective memory of a generation and mentions “the invisible frame which exists in every society and decides what is worth and allowed to be told, and in which way”.46 Another example is Alejandro Leiva Wenger’s involvement in what is known as the “blattesvenskan debate” in Dagens Nyheter in the spring of 2006.47 The debate was triggered by a remark of Ebba Witt-Brattström, Professor of literary studies at Södertörn University. In a TV programme about language repeated on 20 October 2002 at Riksteaterns teaterdagar. Stroud discusses the event in his analysis of “Rinkebyswedish’s” social status (Stroud, “Halvspråkighet och Rinkbysvenska”, 342-44). 45 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe introduce the term “nodal point” into their discourse theory, defining it as privileged discursive points and partial fixations in an otherwise constantly developing and “overflowing” discourse (Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd edn, London: Verso, 2001, 112-13). 46 Anyuru, “Vi får leva här”, 8 (my emphasis). 47 “Blattesvenska” is another term for multi-ethnic youth language, based on the term “blatte” for young immigrants.

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education at school, she talked about “blattesvenska” in a way perceived as condescending. Although this debate is very interesting in the context of multi-ethnic youth language and its status in Swedish society, I cannot analyse in detail its various agents, positions, and arguments.48 Instead, I want to focus on the contributions of two literary authors, Alejandro Leiva Wenger and Susanna Alakoski. Leiva Wenger was first to intervene in the debate, maintaining that multi-ethnic youth language was not to be considered a kind of restricted and inferior code but as “språkglädje” (“language fun”) and “part of a youth culture where linguistic playfulness, creativity and variety has been considered desirable”.49 That Leiva Wenger gets involved in the debate at all is a consequence of his status as a literary author: the success of his Till vår ära lends him authority in multiethnic language matters as much as his insider position as a suburban kid does.50 His main argument about slang being a creative force is in line with his position as an author. Susanna Alakoski, whose acclaimed debut novel Svinalängorna (The Pig Pens) was published in 2006, has not been considered an “immigrant author” in the same way as Leiva Wenger, Anyuru, and Khemiri.51 Still, her recent and 48 The debate articles are at this moment (7 September 2010) still accessible on the web pages of Dagens Nyheter. The first contribution with the title “Vem äger svenskan?” (“Who owns Swedish?”) was published on 19 April 2006 by Ebba WittBrattström (http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/vem-ager-svenskan-1.643868). A more extensive account is to be found in Leonard’s “Sweden’s Swedishest Words”. 49 Alejandro Leiva Wenger, “Förortsslangen står för språkglädje”: “del av en ungdomskultur där språklig lekfullhet, kreativitet och mångsidighet setts som eftersträvansvärt” (Dagens Nyheter, 27 April 2006: http://www.dn.se/kulturnoje/forortsslangen-star-for-sprakgladje-1.627146; accessed 2 September 2010). 50 See Leonard, “Sweden’s Swedishest Words”, 16. The authority, based on Wenger’s native speaker status, is manifested in his rectification of misunderstandings concerning certain slang words, as “guss”, and their etymology in two more contributions to the debate (Dagens Nyheter, 2 May and 5 May 2006). 51 That Alakoski has not been enlisted into the category “immigrant author” is due to several factors. One relevant factor is that her Finnish descent does not attract multicultural attention to the same degree as more exotic origins; another reason is that the multilingual traits in her literary language are not highlighted in the same way as in Leiva Wenger’s or Khemiri’s texts; finally, in the time between Till vår ära’s publishing in 2001 and Alakoski’s 2006 debut, critical discourse developed towards a changed conception of multicultural literature and an understanding of the discriminating power of a term like “immigrant author” (see Magnus Nilsson’s contribution to this volume, and his chapter about Alakoski in Den föreställda mångkulturen: Klass och etnicitet i svensk samtidsprosa, Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2010).

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highly observed appearance on the literary scene, as well as her Finnish descent and multilingual competence, qualify her as an authority in the ongoing language debates. She also reflects on the symbolic value of multi-ethnic slang: Och tänk om blattesvenskan är ett fullvärdigt språk? För nu har vi författare som skriver på denna blattesvenska och jag själv skriver på denna blattefinska och nu har vi människor som älskar dessa böcker.52

Conclusion Although we cannot exactly determine the impact of literature on discourses about multi-ethnic youth language and Swedish as a national language, it seems evident that literary texts as well as their authors and their critical reception have contributed in various ways to the negotiations about multi-ethnic youth language and its status in Swedish society. We can also state that these negotiations have led, over the last fifteen years, to a considerable rise in status and to an augmentation of the symbolic capital of the variety and its use in the national public arena. Of the multitude of factors that have in some way or another contributed to this development, I have focused on only three, all connected to the hip hop band The Latin Kings: I have described their role as a collective symbol of suburban youth culture and as mediator of multi-ethnic youth language to a broader public; I have analysed the use literary texts make of the band and multi-ethnic slang; finally, I have directed attention to some interesting interrelations between academic discourse and The Latin Kings’ lead rapper Dogge. The band and their songs are interesting because their history can be read as a symptom for some characteristics of current Swedish literature, Swedish society, and discourses on multiculturalism and multilingualism. First, it is interesting to note that literature plays a relevant role for The Latin Kings’ border crossing from suburban Still, Alakoski’s bilingualism and some diglossic traits in her novel Svinalängorna have not passed completely unnoticed (see, for example, Maria Arnstad, “Alakoski. Genomfunderad”, Språktidningen, February 2010, 32-34). 52 Susanna Alakoski, “Separationsångest”, Dagens Nyheter, 26 April 2006: “And think if wog-Swedish should be a fully fledged language? Since we now have authors writing this wog-Swedish and myself writing this wog-Finnish and we now have people who love these books.”

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youth culture to a national public space. One way to do this is through intertextual links in literary texts, but still more important is the publication of The Latin Kings’ lyrics in the form of a book with Anyuru’s Preface, maintaining both their literariness and their Swedishness. This is indicative of the relevance of literature in the Swedish discourse on multiculturalism. Secondly, a similar state of affairs can be observed with respect to multi-ethnic youth language. Here, too, its use in a literary context has contributed to a crossing of sub-cultural borders and a growing acceptance in a broader public. But a last thing must be added. The examples mentioned reveal very clearly how bilingualism in literary texts can not only be staged in very different ways but also follow different aims and strategies. In their original context, in hip hop, The Latin Kings’ use of multi-ethnic youth language enhances a striving for recognition and must be understood as a form of identity politics. This is clearly mirrored in the literary texts that describe the experience of the music as a moment of initiation. The book publication of their lyrics, however, has a much more pedagogical aim; it functions, to quote Christopher Stroud, as a “contact zone” between sub-cultural fields and language varieties. This is manifested in the concluding glossary, but also in the functional distribution between slang and standard Swedish, the first one being used in the lyrics, the latter in the paratexts. The literary texts of Anyuru, Leiva Wenger, and Khemiri, then, demonstrate a whole multitude of ways to “dramatize the interplay of languages”.53 Rather than reproduce the multilingual situation in which their authors and readers live, they reflect and sometimes distort it in order to open it up for critical analysis.

53

Declercq and Boyden, “Multilingualism and Diglossia in Migration Literature”, in this volume, 36.

IS THERE OR IS THERE NOT A LITERATURE OF MIGRATION IN DENMARK? SØREN FRANK

Since the end of the Second World War, perhaps even since the early 1900s, the migrant writer has been one of the defining figures of literary history. During the same period, the migration novel has occupied a role similar to the one Franco Moretti ascribes to the Bildungsroman in its heyday from the 1790s to the mid 1800s.1 However, there is considerable incongruity between this general international scenario and the specific literary situation in Denmark: one could claim, with good reason, that there are no migrant writers in Denmark and that the migration novel does not exist in Danish literature. And yet, Danish migrant writers are out there somewhere and migration literature does exist in a Danish context – that is, if one looks hard enough. These two seemingly contradictory statements – “there is not” and “there is” – will serve as the central points of discussion in this article, and I will show that their mutual exclusivity is in fact to be considered as two equally true – and potentially converging – assertions. First, though, I shall substantiate my initial claims regarding the international importance of the migrant writer and the migration novel by listing a series of causes behind their significant contemporary global standing, and then by highlighting empirical evidence of the names of several internationally acclaimed writers with multiple roots. Subsequently, what follows is a characterization of migration literature’s distinctiveness, exemplified by a short analysis of a concrete work of literature. Finally, I will move into the Danish 1

Franco Moretti, The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture (1987), trans. Albert Sbragia, London: Verso, 2000.

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context in order to examine how and why I can simultaneously claim the non-existence and the existence of migrant writers. This includes the introduction of a number of both migrant and native writers from the Danish literary scene and a couple of very brief analyses of some of their works. The age of migration and the migrant writer The twentieth century and afterward is characterized by an intensification of migratory movements of people, commodities, ideas, and information across the globe, a development attributable to mainly three categories of events. First, political incidents, such as the two world wars, regional wars, Fascist and Communist tyrannies, dictatorships, decolonization, the collapse of Communism, and the construction of the EU, have all contributed not only to the uprooting of people, but also to the implosion of old nation-states and the emergence of new ones. Second, evolutions in transport technology – dating back to the sailing ship and the oceanic turn around 1500 (not merely the initial stage of the Age of Discovery, but also of what we today refer to as globalization), continuing with the emergence of steam ships and the railroad networks in the early 1800s, and culminating in the twentieth century with aeroplane traffic – have played a crucial role in overcoming (or at least minimizing) the frictions of specific, physical places, thus making movement easier, cheaper, and more convenient through the creation of what we could call a network of globalized corridors. Third, innovations in communication technologies, such as the telegraph, the radio, television, the internet, and cell phones have helped decrease people’s attachments to specific places, making it possible to be in contact with someone situated thousands of kilometres away and – at least virtually – to be present at any location in the world. As Zygmunt Bauman rightly (but also ambivalently) claims: All of us are, willy-nilly, by design or by default, on the move. We are on the move even if, physically, we stay put: immobility is not a realistic option in a world of permanent change.2

2

Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998, 2.

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For Bauman, and I agree with him on this, voluntary migration, forced uprooting, and staying put basically amount to the same thing in our globalized world of rapid change: a life of mobility (what sets these three modalities of mobility apart are their different subconsequences, which for example depend upon the degree of voluntariness and the material conditions under which one migrates). In that sense, and as Salman Rushdie once stated, “we are all migrant peoples”.3 I back these claims of an increasingly migratory world with facts: according to the United Nations, the estimated number of international migrants – that is, people living in a country different from their country of origin – rose from 155 million people in 1990 to 214 million people in 2010 (that is, from 2.9% to 3.1% of the world’s population). The figures for Europe are even more striking, as the estimated number has risen from 49 million people in 1990 to 70 million in 2010 (that is, from 6.9% to 9.5% of Europe’s population).4 Now, a little more than three per cent on a global scale and a little less than ten per cent for a European territory may not, on the face of it, hint at a migratory world. However, when considering migration’s impact on society, one should not forget the millions of people who migrate interculturally within one nation, for example between countryside and city (which often involves much more radical changes than an international migration between two metropoles), just as the many millions of second- and third-generation descendants of migrants should be taken into account as they are still defined by multiple roots. Finally, and as explained earlier, in our contemporary world, we are all to some extent migratory beings, constantly on the move. Unsurprisingly, these political, sociological, and technological developments have had a deep impact on literary history during the twentieth century. In “Literature and Exile” (1959), the American comparativist Harry Levin urges us – in the spirit of Georg Brandes 3

Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991, London: Granta Books, 1992, 279. 4 United Nations, International Migrant Stock: The 2008 Revision: http://esa.un.org/migration/ (accessed 14 September 2011). In January 2011, 7.7% of the Danish population consisted of international migrants, compared to 6.9% in January 2008 (See Danmarks Statistikbank, FOLK1: http://www.statistikbanken.dk/ FOLK1/ (accessed 14 September 2011)).

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and his pioneering The Emigrant Literature (1872) – “to chronicle the literary migrations of the twentieth century on a scale commensurate with their importance in our lives”, an importance that Levin specifies by claiming that the migrant writer quite simply “speaks with the voice of our time”.5 Levin’s geographical dimension is mainly Western, though, and his temporal horizon actually transcends the twentieth century. Among the authors he discusses – some exiled against their will, others exiled by choice – are not only twentiethcentury writers, such as Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Nabokov, and Samuel Beckett, but also Henrik Ibsen, Heinrich Heine, P.B. Shelley, Voltaire, Dante, and Ovid – and if we think about it, our exilic heritage can be traced all the way back to Adam. However, if migration and exile have been metahistorical occupational hazards for writers, it is still reasonable to maintain – as I did in the beginning of this essay, and as Levin does, too – that migration, due to an increase in scale, has become one of the defining features (if not the defining feature) of literary history in the twentieth century. This is certainly true after the Second World War, when the political processes of decolonization kicked off and, among other things, initiated a globalization of the literary canon, which until then had been a purely Western canon. Writers from the peripheries – Miguel Ángel Asturias, Naguib Mahfouz, Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel García Márquez, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott – suddenly found themselves neighbours with the Homers, the Shakespeares, and the Flauberts. What is particularly interesting in our case is that many of these “peripheral” writers have been in close contact with the West through migratory movements or exilic sojourns, and in their artistic practice, they often draw on Western forms and combine them with local themes and experiences. This combination simultaneously gives their work a unique local inflection and a powerful potential for global reach: Asturias was born in Guatemala, but lived most of his life in Paris and Madrid, where he was influenced by European Surrealism and Modernism; García Márquez is from Colombia, but has lived most of his life in Europe, as well as in Mexico City, and a strong 5

Harry Levin, “Literature and Exile”, in Refractions: Essays in Comparative Literature, New York: Oxford University Press, 1966, 62.

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influence on his work is William Faulkner; Wole Soyinka now lives in Nigeria, his country of birth, but has lived in both the UK and the United States, and in many of his plays he merges European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage; Walcott was born in the West Indies, but has lived in Boston for many years, and in his most famous work, Omeros (1990), he is structurally indebted to Homer’s The Odyssey. What is common to Asturias, Mahfouz, Gordimer, García Márquez, Soyinka, and Walcott – besides originating from the periphery and contributing to the globalization of the literary canon – is their membership in the prestigious club of Nobel laureates. The Nobel Prize actually serves as an excellent example of the migrant writer’s contemporary prominent international reputation. Looking at the recent winners, say, from Günter Grass in 1999 to Mario Vargas Llosa in 2010, no less than ten out of the twelve laureates can be said to live and write in-between two or more cultures, nations, or languages: Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Peru, but has lived in Bolivia, Spain, France, the UK, and the United States; Herta Müller was born in Romania, but now lives in Germany; Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio is both French and Mauritian; Doris Lessing was born in Iran (Persia at the time) and lived for many years in Zimbabwe before settling in England; Orhan Pamuk is Turkish, but lived for several years in the United States; Harold Pinter was English; Elfriede Jelinek is Austrian; John M. Coetzee is from South Africa, but has spent several years in the UK and the United States and is now living in Australia; Imre Kertész is Hungarian, but lives in Berlin; V.S. Naipaul is from Trinidad and Tobago, has Indian roots, but has lived most of his life in the UK; Gao Xingjian was born in China, but has lived in France for more than twenty years; Günter Grass was born in Danzig, but was forced to immigrate to Germany at the end of the Second World War, and in the late 1950s he spent four years in voluntary exile in Paris before returning to Germany.6 Other internationally celebrated writers with migrant backgrounds are Milan Kundera (Czechoslovakia, France), Jorge Semprún (Spain, the Netherlands, France), W.G. Sebald (Germany, the UK), Czeslaw Milosz (Poland, the United States), Adonis (Syria, Lebanon, France), Emine Sevgi 6

See Nobelprize.org, “All Nobel Prizes in Literature”: http://nobelprize.org/ nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/ (accessed 14 September 2011).

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Özdamar (Turkey, Germany), Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco, France), Salman Rushdie (India, the UK, the United States), Amitav Ghosh (India, the UK, the United States), and Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lanka, the UK, Canada). Well aware of the singularity of these authors’ artistic profiles, they all nevertheless seem to craft a literature of migration that is, in general terms, characterized by being simultaneously rooted and weightless, shaded in local colours and movable in global corridors, patriotic and cosmopolitan (in Kwame A. Appiah’s sense of these two words, that is, “patriotic” understood as non-chauvinistic and “cosmopolitan” understood as having respect for one’s local roots).7 More specifically, the issues at stake in migration literature are often related to questions of personal, national, cultural, and religious identity as a result of the migrant writer’s loss of one and (possible) acquisition of another place, language, or culture. To be transplanted from a familiar place, a first language, and a well-known culture into an unknown place, a strange language, and an alien culture automatically triggers a series of renegotiations of identity as the new enters into new dynamic constellations with the old. Metaphorically speaking, the vertical oak tree is replaced by the more horizontal banyan tree as a symbol of human identity. What used to be relatively self-evident and unproblematic identities become more hybrid, fluid, and open – not merely for the migrant, but also for the native who looks upon oneself and upon one’s country through the foreign and de-familiarizing eyes of the migrant writer. As the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan notes in Space and Place (1977), the insider’s intimate perspective benefits from being supplemented with an outside perspective providing sharpness and reflection: “Long residence enables us to know a place intimately, yet its image may lack sharpness unless we can also see it from the outside and reflect upon our experience.”8 This fusion of intimacy and sharpness, of closeness and a necessary distance, is precisely what characterizes Joyce’s perspective on Dublin from his exile in Zurich, Trieste, and 7

Kwame A. Appiah, “Cosmopolitan Patriots”, in Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation, eds Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins, Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 1998, 91-114. 8 Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (1977), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2008, 18.

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Paris, Grass’ perspective on Danzig from his exile in Paris, and Jan Kjærstad’s perspective on Oslo from his exile in Africa. I deliberately write “necessary” (in both an existential and artistic sense) because without this physical and mental distance they would never have embarked on the ventures that ended up as Ulysses (1922), The Danzig Trilogy (1959-1963), and The Wergeland Trilogy (19931999). With its performative potential – that is, with its impurities, heterogeneities, and complexities – migration literature challenges the pedagogical aspirations of nativistic and nationalistic literature.9 The latter is characterized by centripetalizing forces that emphasize historical continuity as well as geographical isolation and distinctiveness, stylistically brought about through the accumulation and transmission of pure, national traditions.10 The former, on the contrary, is characterized by centrifugalizing forces that stress geographical interdependence and cross-pollination as well as the synchronicity of the non-synchronous – that is, the simultaneous presence of conflicting temporalities, geographies, and traditions: in short, a “muddyfication” of genealogies.

9

Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994, 145. The xenophobic Heimat-Roman and Schollen-Roman in Germany prior to and during the Nazi years are obvious examples of nativistic literature, as is the work of South African writer Sarah Gertrude Millin. But also canonized writers, such as Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, William Butler Yeats, Chinua Achebe, and NgNJgƭ wa Thiong’o, lean towards nativism (however, the thing with canonized writers is that they are generally more complex and varied and thus more difficult to pin down). In nineteenth-century Denmark, two professors of art represented the dichotomy between nationalistic and international art: N.L. Høyen, who warned young painters and artists against foreign impulses, and Wilhelm Marstrand, also a painter, who believed that art was and should not be restricted by national borders. In literature, writers such as N.F.S. Grundtvig, B.S. Ingemann (above all in the Scottinspired Valdemar Seier [1826]), Jakob Knudsen, for example with Rodfæstet (Rooted, 1911), Jacob Paludan, especially in Jørgen Stein (1932-1933), and Ebbe Kløvedal Reich, for example in Frederik (1972), a biographical novel about Grundtvig, are examples of nationalistic writers/writing. One could also mention Morten Korch’s novels as a counterpart to the German Schollen-roman and Millin’s South African novels. In Norway, Knut Hamsun’s evolution takes a direction towards nativistic art with Markens grøde (Growth of the Soil, 1917).

10

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The Satanic Verses An example of an aesthetics of “muddification” is The Satanic Verses (1988), undoubtedly one of the most prominent novels of migration, and one in which Salman Rushdie notoriously undermines the official Muslim perception that purity permeates the birth of Islam and the creation of the Koran. The authoritative version states that the transmission of the words of Allah to the archangel Gabriel (logos), from Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad (thought), from Muhammad to the scribe Salman (speech), and from Salman to paper (writing) is an uncomplicated translational process without any deviations or modifications whatsoever. Rushdie, however, pollutes each of these transmission links by insinuating or downright asserting that Gabriel is Satanic, that Muhammad is driven by selfish politico-economical motives (leading, among other things, to his temporary inclusion of the satanic verses, which is problematic in an Islamic context for two reasons: first, it allows for the admission of three goddesses into Islam alongside Allah and thereby introduces polytheism in a strictly monotheistic religion; second, even though the verses are eliminated in the end, the very inclusion/exclusion procedure questions the flawlessness of the Koran), and that Salman – wanting to test Muhammad, whom he suspects of being a fraud – successfully manages to replace certain words of the revelations without raising the prophet’s suspicion (ultimately meaning that the words of the Koran are not the words of Allah). Rushdie’s rejection of uncontaminated stories of origin (and, consequently, of stable discursive formations) and the corresponding propensity for hybrid and fluid states also show through the novel’s cast of characters. The two protagonists, Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta, are characterized by a national and religious split, respectively. Saladin is divided between the India and Bombay of his past (which he desperately tries to ignore) and the England and London of his present (which he desperately wants to be part of), while Gibreel, more unwillingly, is divided between belief in Allah and disbelief. For both of them the split is the catalyst behind their continual psychological and physical metamorphoses: for Gibreel, unable to heal the rift, the personality split leads to suicide, whereas Saladin manages to reach some sort of equilibrium between his Indian and English roots, among other things because he reconciles with his

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Indian past and acquires a more nuanced and critical view on contemporary England. Again, as with Bauman: common condition (mobility and metamorphosis), different consequences (hybrid equilibrium/pathological schizophrenia). Before reaching “wholeness”, Saladin’s fervent desire to become “a good and proper Englishman” results in the construction of an artificial mask of pure Englishness.11 However, the purity is sometimes disturbed because Saladin cannot escape his Indianness. This is what happens in the scene with the stewardess where the past resurfaces in Saladin’s way of speaking, which up until then had manifested itself as the Queen’s English, but now gives way to his old Indian-English idiom. When a stewardess wakes him from a slumber to offer him drinks, Saladin semi-consciously exclaims: ‘Achha, means what?’ he mumbled. ‘Alcoholic beverage or what?’ And, when the stewardess reassured him, whatever you wish, sir, all beverages are gratis, he heard, once again, his traitor voice: ‘so, okay, bibi, give one whiskysoda only’.12

The mental condition of Saladin is materially and formally staged here through linguistic hybridity, which reveals a psychological intermezzo between Englishness and Indianness, present and past, self-control and inevitable capitulation. When Saladin earlier had decided to make a definitive break with his past and his dominant father, he asked his father to chop down the walnut tree planted in the family garden on the occasion of Saladin’s birth. The walnut tree symbolizes Saladin’s Indian rootedness, so the felling of the tree was a clear indication of Saladin’s escape from home, and Saladin is tormented by this symbolism throughout the novel. However, one day when he is watching a television programme featuring a grafted tree, he starts hoping for cohesion: There it palpably was, a chimera with roots, firmly planted in and growing vigorously out of a piece of English earth: a tree, he thought, capable of taking the metaphoric place of the one his father had chopped down in a distant garden in another, incompatible world. If 11 12

Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, London: Viking, 1989, 43. Ibid., 34.

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The chimera becomes a symbol of the acceptance of both his English and his Indian identity, that is, of identity as an open network of roots spread out horizontally instead of either complete rootlessness or the more old-fashioned tree-like rootedness implying a pure monocultural and monolinguistic identity. One last characteristic needs to be mentioned in regard to The Satanic Verses and migration literature in general. Besides thematically emphasizing the hybrid and migratory nature of human identity and of national as well as religious stories of origin, the literature of migration often sustains or intensifies its fluid and dynamic quality through formal strategies. Hence, The Satanic Verses is (as already implied in the example with the stewardess) characterized by linguistic hybridity, but also by enunciatory indeterminacy and compositional complexity: there are the numerous languages blending with one another; there is a multitude of tenses, foci, and perspectives; in regard to composition, the novel consists of 1) a realistic storyline with characters, environments, and developments; 2) fantastic sequences and scenes; and 3) dream sequences, which constitute fragments of a religious discourse with quotes from the Koran and more or less authorized, narrated sequences from it accompanied by comments. The form of The Satanic Verses not only reflects a migratory world, it is in itself a fluid and rhizomatic construction without a centralized perspective (something which undoubtedly contributed to the fierce reactions from certain fundamentalist fractions that had difficulties in understanding or accepting such an anti-authoritarian and hybrid form). For Kjærstad, who believes in the primacy of form – that is, who believes (with Georg Lukács)14 that literary form and composition express a Weltanschauung – Rushdie’s novel, which is ingeniously and artfully

13

Ibid., 406. See Georg Lukács, Die Theorie des Romans (1920), Berlin: Luchterhand, 1965; also Georg Lukács, “Zur Theorie der Literaturgeschichte” (1910), Text + Kritik, XXXIX/40 (1973), 24-51. 14

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composed, thus becomes the leading representative for what he calls the impure novelistic tradition of the twentieth century.15 With this short analysis of an internationally acclaimed novel I hope to have exemplified what the literature of migration can be about and look like. An obvious question follows: is there a literature in Denmark that resembles Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses? In regard to Norway, Kjærstad (in his appeal to “bring on the impure”) accepts the somehow culturally determined difficulty in such a project, although he refuses to abandon the ambition to create a more epic and hybrid novel: To Faldbakken, a ‘Rushdie novel’ about Norway – with references to culture, tradition, thinking, ways of behaviour – is impossible, because we lack the necessary myths and collisions of ideas – hate, for that matter. I see the point of his argument. A ‘magical realism’ applied to Norway easily becomes artificial. However, this is precisely the challenge – not to write about Norway like Günter Grass writes about Germany, Carlos Fuentes about Mexico, or Salman Rushdie about India, but to fabulate and evoke our own, original epic stories based on … well, on something completely different, something that we are yet to discover.16

Kjærstad’s own trilogy Forføreren (The Seducer, 1993), Erobreren (The Conqueror, 1996), and Oppdageren (The Discoverer, 1999) is a Scandinavian example of impure and fabulating literature. In a Danish context, I think one has to divide the answer in two: the Cartoon Crisis in 2006 showed that Denmark has had its own “Rushdie Affair”; at the same time, and as my brief survey of Danish writers below will imply, no Danish literary work matches the degree of thematical emphasis on metamorphosis and impurity and the extent of formal hybridity and transformation that characterizes The Satanic Verses. The story of a Danish discrepancy Shifting our attention to the Danish and Nordic literary landscape, and bearing in mind our earlier use of the Nobel Prize as a weathercock for tendencies and inclinations on the global literary scene, it is 15 Jan Kjærstad, Menneskets felt, Oslo: Aschehoug, 1997, 20-22; Jan Kjærstad, Menneskets matrise, Oslo: Aschehoug, 1989, 214. 16 Kjærstad, Menneskets felt, 23. – All translations to English are my own.

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striking that no author in the history of the Nordisk Råds litteraturpris – the most prestigious literary prize in the Nordic countries – has a migrant background. Ever since the prize was inaugurated in 1962 the winner has been a writer born and living in one of the Nordic countries, from Eyvind Johnson in 1962 to Sofi Oksanen in 2010 (the only exception to my knowledge is Sven Delblanc, who was born in Canada but had Swedish ancestors and lived more or less all of his life in Sweden).17 This remarkable contrast between the Nobel Prize (and many other prizes such as the Man Booker Prize, Prix Goncourt, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature), and the Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris is what makes my initial claim about the non-existence of migrant writers and a literature of migration in Denmark reasonable. In the first place and most radically formulated, the history of Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris indicates an absolute and astonishing absence of the migrant writer in the Nordic countries. Secondly, and closer to the truth, it tells of a literary canon and a literary establishment that historically have had no room for foreign perspectives, hybrid identities, and marginal voices – for what Kjærstad has called (and also urgently called for) “a brilliant piece of cultural heresy” – instead prioritizing what I earlier referred to as nativist and nationalistic narratives (although Sofi Oksanen, the latest winner, admittedly writes in-between the Finnish and Estonian cultures).18 It is difficult to pinpoint just one reason for this apparent lack of migrant writers in Denmark, so here are five attempts to explain the situation: colonial history, language, international reputation, literary quality, and the book market. In comparison to France and the UK, Denmark has not had a colonial history of the same magnitude as those two countries. Denmark’s “colonization” of Norway did not really involve interculturalism and ethnic issues, and where this was the case, as with for example Greenland and the Danish West Indies,19 the impact has, for different reasons, not been remotely close to what 17

See “Nordisk Råds litteraturpris”: http://www.norden.org/da/nordisk-raad/nordiskepriser/litteraturprisen/ (accessed 14 September 2011). 18 Kjærstad, Menneskets felt, 24. 19 The Danish West Indies consisted of the islands Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Saint Croix, annexed in 1672, 1718, and 1733 respectively by Vestindisk-guineisk Kompagni, sold to the Danish king in 1745 and then bought by the United States in 1917.

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countries such as India, South Africa, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Senegal, and Haiti have had on the UK, the Netherlands, and France. In addition to the relative modesty of Danish colonial history, the Danish language – not only a minor language, but also a scientifically proven difficult language to learn – functions as a hurdle, perhaps not so much in terms of scaring off immigrants in general (for whom the Danish welfare model seems to offer a positive counterweight to the language problem) as to posing overwhelming problems of expression and creativity to immigrant writers in particular. A third reason may have to do with a certain international reputation that Denmark has gained (justifiably or not) – especially since 2001 when the right-wing government came into power – for xenophobia and strict immigration laws. However, the relatively short history of this reputation cannot really be said to have had an effect on the historical lack of migrant writers in Denmark, although it may play a small part in today’s literary landscape. The question of literary quality should also be taken into account. Publishers in Denmark admit that they receive quite a few manuscripts from aspiring migrant writers, but in many cases the quality is simply not good enough. According to Niels Beider from Gyldendal, this often has to do with poor language: “the reason why we haven’t published more literature by people with immigrant background quite simply is that the quality of the language hasn’t been good enough.” The lack of quality has no doubt also to do with a question of quantity, that is, with the low number of people from which to choose. As Marco Goli remarks: The pool of talent is obviously not very big. We have 200,000300,000 [persons] with immigrant background to take from, and many of them would never ever go down that road because of a lack of education and linguistic skills.20

One last reason I will mention is the size of the Danish book market. In a small country such as Denmark – defined not only by a comparatively small pool of buyers, but also by a minor language spoken only in this country – a thematic and formal conservatism as 20

Aydin Soei, “Indvandrerforfattere: Dansk indvandrer-litteratur – har vi det?”, Information, 23 February 2006, 18-19.

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well as a suspicion toward experiment and newness naturally characterize the market. For a publisher, there is a big difference between a potential audience amounting to one million readers of a book in Danish and one billion readers of a book in English. If Denmark has been a relatively homogeneous nation-state throughout history, or at least has been so in the cultural imagination, and if the Danish literary canon feeding this imagination has been oriented towards nativistic and nationalistic narratives, it follows that the literature of migration can be considered a niche market in Denmark, and this may explain why publishers shy away from it – or at least used to do so. However, within the last decade or so, certainly since the Cartoon Crisis in 2006, as issues of multiculturalism and ethnicity have come to the national forefront, this explanation is no longer valid, as we have witnessed a genuine and almost aggressive call for migrant writers from both publishing houses and the media in Denmark. This public appeal is another example of how my initial claim of no Danish migrant writers can be considered true, since the call would not be made, one should think, if there were migrant writers already on the market. One may speculate about the reasons behind this new awareness of migration and intercultural literature in media and by publishers. One obvious reason for the publishers is that they have sensed a new commercial avenue, partly inspired by the international trend where migrant writers are setting the agenda. In other words, Danish editors may have asked themselves if it was not possible to discover or create a Danish Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, or Hanif Kureishi if they looked hard enough or shouted loudly enough. Another reason may be that both the media and the publishing houses have come to see an incongruity not merely between the Danish and the international literary scenes, but also between the Danish literary landscape and Danish society in general. I certainly see this incongruity myself, although I have also attempted to outline reasons for Denmark not being comparable to the UK and France. The incongruity argument is what one of the editors of the anthology Nye stemmer (New Voices, 2007), Naja Maria Aidt, emphasizes when she explains one of the motifs behind the anthology (which can be characterized as the most concrete outcome of the call from the media and the publishing houses, more specifically Berlingske Tidende and

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Gyldendal): “We are so much in need of new voices, who speak from new places.”21 The story of Danish writers with multiple roots While acknowledging the discrepancy, and thus contributing to the line of thinking that Denmark somehow lacks behind other countries (including Sweden and Norway),22 I will nevertheless emphasize the paradox inherent in the aggressive call for migrant writers by media and publishers by drawing attention to some of those migrant writers who actually do exist in Denmark. Back in the late 1950s, Maria Giacobbe, a young Italian writer born in 1928 on Sardinia, immigrated to Denmark where she has lived ever since. Love and marriage were the main incentives behind her decision to emigrate. She was already a writer when she came to Denmark – her prize-winning debut Diario duna maestrina (A Teacher’s Diary) was published in Italy in 1957 (and translated into Danish as Lærerinde på Sardinien in 1961) – and she continues to write most of her work in Italian, a typical example of literary bilingualism. In her Dagbog mellem to verdener (Diary Between Two Worlds, 1975), Giacobbe thematizes existential and geographical rootlessness – perhaps still an unfamiliar phenomenon in comfy Denmark in the mid 1970s – and in the following she outlines a sort of migrant typology: Vanskeligheden ved at tilpasse sig de nye livs- og arbejdsbetingelser udgør et problem eller et kompleks af problemer som, på mere eller mindre dramatisk vis, rejser sig for alle dem, nøden river ud af deres naturlige milieu og kaster ud i nye og uvante omgivelser, til en ny og uvant aktivitet. Nogle lykkes det heldigvis … at vænne sig til forholdene og slå nye rødder. Andre, måske de fleste, resignerer, men vænner sig aldrig til det nye liv og bliver … ved at være passive og triste fremmedelementer, plaget af evindelig hjemve og derved dobbelt 21 Nye stemmer, eds Naja Maria Aidt, Jens Andersen, Rushy Rashid, and Janne Breinholt Bak, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2007, 8. 22 “While the Swedes offer young stars like Marjaneh Bakhtiari and Jonas Hassen Khemiri, who sell hundreds of thousands of copies, and the English among others serve up Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith, we lag immensely behind in Denmark. The scene for literature written by Danes with an immigrant background is almost nonexistent, even though immigrants have been part of street life since the early 1970s”, says Aydin Soei (“Indvandrerforfattere”, 18-19).

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Søren Frank fremmedgjorte. Andre igen vænner sig aldrig til det nye, men resignerer heller ikke. Hvis det er umuligt for dem at vende tilbage til det land, de kommer fra, er det dem, der slutter sig til skaren af utilpassede i det nye land, og som, via alle slags småfiduser, ender i professionel kriminalitet. Nogle af dem “får succes,” bliver mægtige, skaber “skoler” og “kongeriger,” det er Al Capone’erne, Joe Fusco’erne, Abner Zwillman’erne. Også de slår … rødder i det nye milieu. Andre, de svagere, bliver ved at være navnløse, eller omtales måske med et par linier i aviserne i de byer, som har huset dem og hvor man en dag har fundet dem døde, af vold, druk eller desperation.23

Giacobbe does not seem to place too much trust in the positive outcome of migrating – she only devotes two lines to the successful migrants and explicitly claims that they are far fewer than the unsuccessful – although she herself represents someone who has managed to put down new roots without abandoning her old ones. Among the unsuccessful, she distinguishes between those who never get used to the new life but settle into resignation (and suffer double alienation), and those who never get used to the new life but at the same time refuse to settle into resignation. Among the latter she counts both the successful criminals and the nameless victims. In Giacobbe’s Eksil og adskillelse: 12 (+1) ikke så fantastiske fortællinger (Exile and Separation: 12 (+1) Not So Fantastic Stories, 23 Maria Giacobbe, Dagbog mellem to verdener, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1975, 135-36: “The difficulty in adapting oneself to the new life and work conditions poses a problem or a complex of problems that in a more or less dramatic fashion confronts all those deprivation forces out of their natural environment and throws into new and unusual surroundings, to a new and unusual activity …. Some luckily succeed ... in getting used to the circumstances and put down new roots. Others, perhaps the majority, become resigned but never get used to the new life and continue ... to be passive and sad aliens, haunted by an eternal homesickness and thereby double alienated. Yet others never get used to the new, but neither do they settle into resignation. If it is impossible for them to return to the country from which they originally came, it is these people who join the throng of unsettled in the new country and who, through all sorts of tricks, end up in professional crime. Some of them ‘achieve success’, become great, create “schools” and “kingdoms”, it is the Al Capones, the Joe Fuscos, the Abner Zwillmans. They, too, ... put down roots in the new environment. Others, the weaker, continue to be nameless, or perhaps they are mentioned with a couple of lines in the newspapers in the cities that have housed them and where one day they are found dead of violence, drinking, or despair.”

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2001), the general atmosphere is dystopic and marked by alreadyhappened or yet-to-come catastrophes – physical or existential, local, global, or private – that place the characters in front of almost insurmountable hindrances and in completely new environments. However, despite the seeming hopelessness of their mental and geographical exiles the characters are endowed with an unbelievable endurance and tenacity that prepare them for and infuse them with faith in new beginnings. Janina Katz, together with Giacobbe the most acclaimed migrant writer in Denmark, immigrated to Denmark in 1969 from Poland because of persecution by the Communist regime. Born in Krakow in 1939, she published her first book, the collection of poems Min moders datter (My Mother’s Daughter, 1991), more than twenty years after arriving in Denmark. Devoted mostly to poetry, Katz has also published prose works, among others the convincing Drengen fra dengang (The Boy from Then) published in 2004. It is a novel about Ania, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish immigrant in Copenhagen, who looks back on her former life in Poland and Germany in an attempt to piece together her identity, her past, and her lineage. The immigrant’s incoherent life and psyche, a result of traumatic events and experiences of uprooting, is mirrored in the novel’s fragmentary form that oscillates between confused memories of the past and present attempts, often unsuccessful, to understand them. In 1974, after having fled from Chile in 1973 in the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup, Rubén Palma arrived in what he then considered a paradisiacal Copenhagen by way of Argentina. Palma, who was born in Santiago in 1954, began writing in Danish in 1985. He published his first book in 1990, Brevet til Danmark (The Letter to Denmark), a work that is equally marked by gratitude towards and defamiliarizing perspectives on Danish culture. His publications also include Møder med Danmark (Meetings with Denmark, 1993) and Fra lufthavn til lufthavn (2001), translated into English as The Trail We Leave (2004). In all his works, Palma refuses to portray the migrant as just a victim, instead emphasizing the privileging aspects of being transplanted into new soil. In an interview, Palma tells a funny anecdote about one of the five rejections he received on Brevet til Danmark: I think the book was ahead of its time. It was a period when refugees were supposed to be wretches who were miserable and missed their homelands, etc. ... I will never forget! The concerned publishing house

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Søren Frank wrote that the book didn’t express or describe how the situation of a refugee was. Now, that is amazing! Here was a Danish person with an assumption about how “it should be”. They didn’t even hide it.24

Palma’s refusal to victimize himself and the migrant in general – despite experiences of political danger and persecution – is in line with the political incorrectness of Joseph Brodsky’s (another migrant writer who won the Nobel Prize) provocative assertion in “The Condition We Call Exile”: … what our exiled writer has in common with a Gastarbeiter or a political refugee is that in either case a man is running away from the worse toward the better. The truth of the matter is that from a tyranny one can be exiled only to a democracy. For good old exile ain’t what it used to be. It isn’t leaving civilized Rome for savage Sarmatia anymore, nor is it sending a man from, say, Bulgaria to China. No, as a rule what takes place is a transition from a political and economic backwater to an industrially advanced society with the latest word on individual liberty on its lips. And it must be added that perhaps taking this route is for an exiled writer, in many ways, like going home – because he gets closer to the seat of the ideals which inspired him all along.25

The fourth writer to mention is Milena Rudež. Born in BosniaHerzegovina in 1958, she came to Denmark in 1992 as a refugee from the Balkan War. She made her debut in 1987 in Sarajevo with a collection of poems, Dnevnik slijepog putnika (The Diary of the Blind Passenger). In 2002, she published a bilingual collection of poems, Den blinde rejsende fra Sarajevo/Slijepi putnik iz Sarajeva (The Blind Traveller from Sarajevo). Finally, Adil Erdem, born in 1964 in a small village south of Ankara, Turkey, the son of a Kurdish gæstearbejder (“guest worker”) in Denmark, arrived in Denmark in 1982, shortly after having published his first book in Turkish, the novel Hayat dikeni para (Money, the Thorn of Life,1982). Erdem made his debut in Danish in 24

Kirsten Rødsgaard-Mathiesen, “Den chilenske dansker”, Berlingske Tidende, 1 November 2001, 4. 25 Joseph Brodsky, “The Condition We Call Exile, or Acorns Aweigh”, 1987, in On Grief and Reason: Essays, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995, 23-24.

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1991 with a collection of short stories, Som en dråbe i Norden (Like a Rain Drop in the North). We can discern a few common traits in Giacobbe, Katz, Palma, Rudež, and Erdem. First, they are all migrants in the traditional sense, that is, they have all experienced proper uprooting from their native countries, either because they felt forced to flee (Katz, Palma, Rudež) or because they voluntarily chose to emigrate (Giacobbe, Erdem). Second, they are all involved in translation and in bringing about intercultural exchanges through the promotion of Danish culture abroad or the promotion of Italian, Polish, Chilean, Bosnian, or Kurdish culture in Denmark. Third, they all exemplify my point about the immigrant writer’s difficulties in acquiring the Danish language, indeed an issue that must be taken into account when discussing the low amount of migrant writers in Denmark: Giacobbe, already a writer when arriving in Denmark, has continued to write most of her books in Italian; Katz waited more than twenty years after her immigration to publish in Danish, and this was also her first publication ever; with Palma it took eleven years before he wrote anything in Danish, also his first attempt to write at all; a decade or so is also the case with Rudež and Erdem, both of whom had published before coming to Denmark. The call for migrant writers by the media and publishing houses is primarily directed towards a younger generation of writers who do not necessarily have experiences of proper uprooting – that is, writers born in Denmark to ethnic parents or to a Danish parent and an ethnic parent, or writers adopted by Danish parents. One writer who actually carries painful migratory experiences in his luggage is the poet Alen Meškoviü, who participated (as did Milena Rudež) in Nye stemmer and published his first book in 2009, a collection of poems and short prose, Første gang tilbage (First Time Back). Meškoviü was born in Bosnia in 1977, but came to Denmark in 1994 having fled from the war-torn Balkans where his family were driven out of their home, and after a two-year stay in a refugee camp in Croatia. Første gang tilbage is about the author’s first visit to his childhood home and native country after immigrating, and the main theme of the book – a book that depicts homecoming as anything but a happy event – is mental and metaphysical homelessness underlined by a language and style

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that are simultaneously fragmentary and fluid.26 “A house is not a home unless one leaves it”, could stand as the motto of the book with its paradoxical blend of melancholy and hope.27 An example of a writer who is adopted and whose multiple rooting is creatively thematized is Maja Lee Langvad, who was born in South Korea in 1980, but came to Denmark when she was three months old. Langvad published Find Holger Danske, a collection of poems, in 2006 and is generally concerned with issues of belonging, roots, and personal and national identity – a concern that among other things shows in her recent long stays in South Korea. Additionally, Lone Aburas was born in Denmark in 1979 to a Danish mother and Egyptian father. She has published two novels, Føtexsøen (The Føtex Lake, 2009) and Den svære toer (The Difficult Second, 2011), in which her double belonging plays a significant role. The last writer of double belonging I will mention is Birgithe Kosoviü, who was born in Denmark in 1972 to a Danish mother and a father from the then-Yugoslavia. She made her debut with the Blixeninspired novel Legenden om Villa Valmarana (The Legend of Villa Valmarana, 1997), which was followed by Om natten i Jerusalem (Night-time in Jerusalem, 1999), the latter translated into Swedish, Norwegian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Greek. Her latest novel, Det dobbelte land (The Double Country, 2010), explores the history of her father’s family in the former Yugoslavia during a period that includes the Second World War, Tito Communism, and the Balkan Wars. In that sense, the novel infuses Danish literature with an international dimension and introduces the grand political themes of uprooting, catastrophe, and war into a Danish context through a personalized history and voice. As Lars Bukdahl remarks in a commemoration speech: “Det dobbelte land is a completely unDanish novel that in no way is about Denmark and is admittedly written in Danish, but a strong(ly) un-Danish Danish [‘et stærkt udansk dansk’], which is the opposite of a bad and sloppy Danish, that is to say an extraordinary dense and dramatical Danish.”28 Bukdahl 26

In that sense, Meškoviü’s poems resembles Natasha Radojþiü’s novel Homecoming (2002), which also problematizes returning home after the war. 27 Alen Meškoviü, Første gang tilbage, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2009, 11: “Et hus er ikke et hjem, medmindre det forlades.” 28 Lars Bukdahl, “Den tvetungede stork”, Weekendavisen, 28 January 2011, 1.

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here touches upon a significant distinction between poor Danish language (what the publishers claim they often see in manuscripts from immigrants) and “a strong(ly) un-Danish Danish”, that is, a Danish suffused with an unmistakable twist of foreignness (and therefore very powerful). In Kosoviü’s case, brutality and eroticism particularly underscore this foreignness: “In Det dobbelte land one comes across some of the most maliciously brutal prose passages in later Danish literature and some of the most juicily erotic.”29 Brutality characterizes a number of intensely felt scenes featuring wife-battering, sister murder, foetal murder, war-related violence, or, as in the following example, animal slaughter: Et hysterisk, infernalsk skrig får den hede, stillestående luft til at vibrere og sender en bølge af panik gennem drengen. Han holder sig for ørerne, mens grisen fnyser perler af blod ud af trynen, og de røde blanke pletter på terrassegulvet synes at indeholde hele det levende i sig, som de før var en del af. Med en forkølet prusten kaster dyret sig fra side til side, mens blodet spreder sig i fede stråler ud over halsen og plumper ned i karret under dets hoved .... Opgivende lader den store krop sig sprætte op. Huden glider til siden, med de gullige kanter omkring det glinsende blåviolette og blodsprængte kødsår. En hånd griber ind idet skjulte, der søges omkring derinde, og med et klask vælter en uformelig klump af indvolde ned idet andet kar. Fra mørket i de eksploderede pupiller stirrer grisen måbende tilbage på drengen, og det går op for ham, at den stadig er i live.30

As to eroticism, the novel is both saturated with a general erotic gaze (Milovan’s) and full of explicit sex scenes: 29

Ibid., 2. Birgithe Kosoviü, Det dobbelte land, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2010, 121: “A hysterical, infernal scream makes the hot, still air vibrate and sends a wave of panic through the boy. He protects his ears with his hands while the pig snorts pearls of blood out of the snout, and the red shiny stains on the terrace floor seem to contain all the living that they were formerly a part of. With a feeble grunt the animal throws itself from side to side while the blood spreads out over the neck in thick squirts and plumps into the tub under its head .... Despairingly, the large body lets itself be slit open. The skin slides apart, with the yellowish edges around the glistening purple and bloodshot flesh wound. A hand grasps into the hidden, looks around in there, and with a smack a formless chunk of entrails falls into the other tub. From the darkness in the exploded pupils the pig stares vacantly back upon the boy, and he realizes that it is still alive.” 30

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Søren Frank Han tog fat om hendes underben oppe ved knæet og spredte hendes ben vidt ud, mens han så ned på hendes venusbjerg under trusserne, som hun stadig havde på, og trykkede sin pik ind mod det varme skød, der modstandsløst åbnede sig for ham. Han kunne forsvinde i hende, han kunne give slip på alt og overgive sig, og der ville ingen tid være mere, alt ville blive borte, mens han sank ind i hende, som ind mod sig selv, sin egen opløsning – men inden han nåede så langt, sendte hans pik kaskader af sæd ind mellem de yderste læber – som hvis han var en skoledreng!31

The woman with whom Milovan makes love here is not his wife. It is Lidija, his best friend’s pregnant wife who has just been told that her husband Nebojša suffers from a brain tumour. The point I want to make is that whether we speak of war cruelty, ethnic cleansing, wife battering, pig slaughtering, erotic gazes, or passionate sex, Kosoviü quite simply deals in brutality. Brutality is not simply related to violence, it is also an intrinsic part of eroticism: in the Lidija-Milovan scene, it is, among other things, brought about by the fact that they both betray the hospitalized Nebojša, and the fact that they have just learned of his brain tumour. However, it is further emphasized by the fact that the sexual culmination just described is immediately preceded by an initial and very passionate attempt at intercourse that was interrupted because Milovan suddenly became conscious of their embarrassing endeavour. But the termination of their lovemaking triggers a feeling of disgrace that feels stronger than the feeling of having done the right thing, so Milovan grabs Lidija’s legs and continues – that is, the brutality is here underlined because Milovan resumes the betrayal even after having been hit by remorse. If brutality in Kosoviü’s novel is part and parcel of not only scenes of violence, but also of eroticism, sensuousness is a strong component of not only eroticism, but also of scenes of violence. In slaughter 31

Ibid., 178: “He grabbed her lower leg just under her knee and spread her legs wide while he looked down upon her vulva under the panties, which she still wore, and pushed his cock against the hot womb that unresisting opened itself for him. He could disappear into her, he could let go of everything and surrender himself, and time would cease to exist, everything would be gone, while he sank into her as toward himself, his own dissolution – but before he got that far his cock send cascades of sperm in between the outer lips – as if he was a school boy!”

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scenes, war scenes, and erotic scenes, Kosoviü shows an acute sense for the physical detail as the semantic dimension of language is played down and supplemented with a pre-coded material intensity invoked through sounds and smells, light and tactility, rhythms and fleshy texture, substances and affects, things and sensations. In Kosoviü’s case we can neither speak of literary multilingualism (as in Giacobbe’s case) nor of textual multilingualism (as in Rushdie’s case). Rather, Kosoviü, who was born in Denmark and writes in Danish, is – and this is what Bukdahl refers to positively as “a strong(ly) unDanish Danish” – a sort of stranger in her own language: she is polylingual or multilingual in a single language, she creates a minor language within her own language, a minor use of her own language.32 By disclosing her own personal relation to the novel’s story – a story that takes place far away from Denmark and thus possibly makes the Danish reader wonder what all this has to do with him or her – Kosoviü forces the reader to acknowledge that the Balkan Wars, the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, and the thousands of refugees from the war are part of a global history in which Denmark also plays a role. In an aesthetic sense, Kosoviü’s novel also qualifies as a migratory work of art (and this sense of an author taking the literary form seriously – this feeling of the author’s intense toiling with language, point of view, and composition, of the formally articulated artistic vision – is precisely what proves it to be a genuine work of art) as the thematic focus on individual displacements and national dissolution is reflected in a fragmentary form (mediated primarily through the chaotic consciousness of Milovan) consisting of intensely lucid and instantaneous images disconnected from each other. Therefore the reader is never given a panoramic overview of the history of Yugoslavia; instead, Kosoviü reflects, expresses, and creates the national collapse through a self-doubting, broken individual. In that sense, Det dobbelte land is not so much a novel about the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia as it is a novel growing out of or placed in this disintegration.33 32

See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (1975), Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 1986, 26-27; Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues (1996), London: Athlone, 2002, 4. 33 Apart from those already mentioned, the following writers of double belonging also deserve to be mentioned as part of the Danish literary scene: Arash Sharifzadeh Abdi,

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The banyanization of native writers A problem I have not touched upon is the question of categorizing. Many of the writers mentioned here are very critical toward the term indvandrerlitteratur (“immigrant literature”), which seems to be the preferred term in a Danish context. I have elsewhere argued for the use of “migration literature” instead of “migrant literature”, one reason being that “migrant literature” (like indvandrerlitteratur) refers directly to the biography of the writer and thus connotes a compulsory (and therefore very problematic) link between authorial background and literary theme.34 This inherent othering, stigmatization, and limitation of creativity are also the main explanations to why many of the above-mentioned authors, for example Rubén Palma, dislike the concept of indvandrerlitteratur: “there is a tendency to regard what you write as an indistinguishable part of the current debate on immigration.”35 What follows is an expectation of a general politicomoralistic and didactic literature where aesthetic questions receive no attention. Another incentive for substituting “migrant literature” with “migration literature” is that the latter loosens the biographical link – what Rushdie once called “the confining myth of authenticity, that folkloristic straitjacket” – and points more toward textual immanence,

Musa Ajmi, Muniam Alfaker, Murat Alpar, Alicja Fenigsen, Irfan Gevheroglu, Duna Ghali, Marco Goli, Jamal Jumá, Eva Tind Kristensen, Sofia Kuperman, Kim Leine, Paulina Nielsen, Morteza Seighali, Sara Mathai Stinus, Goran Todorovic, and Iboja Wandall-Holm. There are two more writers I would like to mention: Tabish Khair is a professor of English at Aarhus University and an internationally acclaimed novelist published by such renowned publishers as Picador (The Bus Stopped, 2004; Filming, 2007) and Harper Collins (The Thing About Thugs, 2010). Jamal Mahjoub is from Sudan and the UK, but has also lived in Denmark and Spain. Mahjoub has published several internationally acclaimed novels, and one of these – his first novel from 1998, The Carrier – actually takes place in Denmark in the seventeenth century and in the present. It is puzzling to me, taking the Danish publishers’ call for indvandrerlitteratur with foreign perspectives on Denmark into consideration, that no Danish publisher has yet published this excellent novel. For a brilliant reading of The Carrier, see Sten Pultz Moslund’s Migration Literature and Hybridity: Different Speeds of Transcultural Change, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 34 See Søren Frank, Migration and Literature: Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, and Jan Kjærstad, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 35 Rubén Palma, “Bio”, rubenpalma.dk, 23 November 2008: http://www.rubenpalma. dk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=118&Itemid=183/ (accessed 14 September 2011).

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that is, toward what actually takes place in the work itself independent of the personal experiences of the author.36 Finally, “migration” understood etymologically as movement and change37 possesses a certain explanatory power in regard to the formal aspects of this type of literature, characterized as it often is by fluidity, hybridity, and metamorphosis.38 If some authors have a critical stance toward indvandrerlitteratur, others – mainly among the younger generation – sense an opportunity in employing (and exploiting) a term that clearly is now held in high regard with publishers and media – and who can blame them? In that sense, we may be witnessing a reversal in hierarchy, where the nativistic narratives emphasizing the purity of national traditions, formerly the dominating genre (especially in the nineteenth century), are now replaced by a multicultural and impure literature. The danger is that certain expectations to literature in general and to specific authors in particular begin to infiltrate the literary system and dictate the way literature is written. A result of loosening the link between authorial biography and literary content is not only that it becomes possible to imagine that migrant writers can produce literature that has absolutely nothing to do with migrants and migration, but also that it becomes possible – and this is the final point I will make – to imagine that non-migrant writers can produce migration literature. One reason for this is that writers are imaginative beings who can write many things that have no biographical grounding; another is that we live in an age of migration in which we are all, to some extent, migratory beings just as we are all immersed in a society that is more multicultural than ever before.39 In Denmark, we may have a literary scene short of canonized migrant 36

Rushdie, Satanic Verses, 52. Migration originates from the Latin migrare (to wander, to move) and the Greek ameibein (to change). 38 The fact that “migration” also functions as an aesthetic-formal concept is precisely why “migration literature” is a better concept than “migrant literature”, “literature of exile”, “literature of globalization”, and “diasporic literature”, all of which lack the formal explanatory power, referring as they do only to biographical and/or thematic issues. 39 To claim that we live in a multicultural society in the twenty-first century does not necessarily mean that society was once monocultural and pure. It is a question of degree, which is meant to indicate a process of acceleration and intensification. 37

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writers, but some native Danish writers have begun to write about migration. Karsten Lund has thus written a novel about a Turkish immigrant arriving in Denmark in 1969, Skrønen om Erkan (The Tale About Erkan, 2010), and Olav Hergel, who, like Lund, has a journalistic background, has published two novels, Flygtningen (The Refugee, 2006) and Indvandreren (The Immigrant, 2010). In 2009, Carsten Nagel published Zehras flugt (Zehra’s Escape), a novel about a twelve-year-old Bosnian girl’s experiences of war and her subsequent escape to Denmark. Finally, Jens Christian Grøndahl, one of Denmark’s most acclaimed international writers, has written about an American and a Romanian immigrant in Copenhagen in his novel Piazza Bucarest (2004). Grøndahl’s narrator asks a question in the novel that could also be read as Grøndahl’s implicit answer to the discussion of nativistic versus cosmopolitan literature: “How could I restrict myself to writing about spoiled middle-class Danes’ heartaches while world history roared into my ears?”40 Well, the point is that even if that is what he really wished to do, he cannot avoid world history. However, the way Grøndahl incorporates the world in the novel is through the personal experiences of ordinary people: Scott, the American who first marries a Danish woman to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War; and Elena, the Romanian who then marries Scott to escape Ceausescu’s communist tyranny and live in freedom – a choice, however, that also means abandoning her child in Bucharest. Through Elena, Grøndahl manages to create an outside perspective on Denmark and the Danish people, and this helps qualify the novel as a migration novel: “Their normal condition was the smallholder’s fearsome, stockily glowering mistrust and only had the nit-picking spitefulness or the blustering joviality as poles in a basically dilatory and drowsy temper’s vacillations.”41 Whether Grøndahl has a point or not in letting Scott and Elena end up in the US and Italy respectively, thus potentially connoting a Denmark unable to accommodate or satisfy migrants, I shall refrain from answering. 40 Jens Christian Grøndahl, Piazza Bucarest, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2004, 85: “Hvordan kunne jeg nøjes med at skrive om forkælede middelklassedanskeres hjertekvababbelser, mens verdenshistorien brølede om ørerne på mig?” 41 Ibid., 69: “Deres normaltilstand var husmandens frygtsomme, undersætsig skulende mistro og havde kun den kværulerende trods eller den brovtende jovialitet som poler i for et i bund og grund sendrægtigt og dorsk temperaments udsving.”

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So, to conclude, it is in a way reasonable to claim that the Danish literary scene is without migrant writers – they are, as we have seen, completely absent from the literary canon. On the other hand, there are a few migrant writers who have published books in Denmark, but the fact that Giacobbe and Katz are probably the best known of these writers only emphasizes the relative obscurity of the migrant writer in Denmark. However, there seems to be emerging two new dimensions of the field. One is that a younger generation with multiple rooting – some born outside Denmark, some born in Denmark – could be on the verge of a breakthrough (Kosoviü receiving Weekendavisen’s literary prize and, in a Nordic context, Oksanen receiving the Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris are perhaps a sign of this), although we seem to have passed beyond the possibility of a Danish Midnight’s Children moment (as when Rushdie in 1981 stunned and exhilarated Western critics and readers alike with his breakthrough novel). Another dimension is that core Danish writers are beginning (like for instance Jan Kjærstad has been doing in Norway since the 1990s) to tackle the issues of migration, interculturality, and national identity in their works. Both dimensions point toward a less rigid emphasis on authorial biography (although biography cannot and should not be completely bracketed) and a more work-immanent approach. It is now up to us, the scholars, to invent new and appropriate concepts and categories that are able to match the cultural phenomena of twentyfirst-century global society.

THE EMERGENCE OF A DUTCH-MOROCCAN LITERATURE: AN INSTITUTIONAL AND LINGUISTIC EXPLANATION MARJAN NIJBORG AND FOUAD LAROUI

The “breakthrough” made by certain writers is determined not only by the literary, intrinsic quality of their work; extra-textual factors also play a role. Pierre Bourdieu is regarded as the founder of this literarysociological vision and has brought about an important change in approaches to literature.1 In the 1960s, he introduced the concept of “the field of cultural production” in which certain forces (such as the literary institutions) determine what art is, what literature is. Power relations in this field manifest themselves in “the monopoly of literary legitimacy, i.e. inter alia, the monopoly of the power to say with authority who are authorized to call themselves writers; or, to put it another way, it is the monopoly of the power to consecrate producers or products ...”.2 “Migrant writers” and Dutch-language writers with Moroccan roots, like any other writers, are involved in Bourdieu’s “field of cultural production” in which literary institutions, among others, are “in power”. The latter determine, to put it briefly, what has literary quality and what does not. Literary institutions are thus partly responsible for the rise of migrant writers in general and those of Moroccan origin in particular. This article discusses the function and influence of the main institutions in Amsterdam’s literary field with regard to Dutch-Moroccan literature (that is Dutch literature by writers from Moroccan origin). As a linguistic digression, an effort will be made to explain why Dutch-Moroccan writers express themselves in Dutch rather than in Arabic. 1

Pierre Bourdieu (Denguin, 1 August 1930-Paris, 23 January 2002). Bourdieu was one of the few renowned sociologists to link theory and empiricism. 2 Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, ed. R. Johnson, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 42.

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Dutch-Moroccan writers emerge Mustafa Stitou (Tetouan, 1974) is the first author of Moroccan origin to tread the literary stage in the Netherlands: he made his debut in 1994 at the age of nineteen with Mijn vormen (My Forms, 1994), a collection of poems.3 Apart from one negative review critics favourably received this work.4 How did Stitou find his way to a literary publisher? Did he, like most aspiring writers, send the manuscript of his first collection to a publisher in the hope that it would not end up in the slush pile? No, it happened in a different way: in 1992, Stitou won the El Hizjra literature prize for the poetry category with the poem “Twee gedichten over bijna-doden” (“Two Poems about the Dying”). This drew the attention of Oscar van Gelderen, editor at the Arena publishing house at the time (and publisher at Vassallucci from 1995 to 2005), who offered Stitou a contract to write a collection of poems. 1992 was the year in which the El Hizjra foundation, a centre for Arabic art and culture established in 1987, first decided to hold a writing competition for Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Arab writers, which still takes place every year. Is it perhaps due to this initiative by El Hizjra that a relatively large number of writers of Moroccan descent have made it into the literary world in contrast to, for instance, writers with a Turkish background? The following quote from 2006 by Simone IJben, publishing manager at El Hizjra, leads us to suspect this: Er zijn nu dertien afleveringen [van de schrijfwedstrijd] geweest, elf auteurs zijn doorgebroken, en allemaal waren ze winnaars van de El Hizjra Literatuurprijs. Dus ja: wij zijn wel de opstap geweest. Uitgevers, hoewel uiteindelijk maar een paar, kijken welwillender als auteurs van ons komen.5 3

Stitou was brought to the Netherlands when he was a baby, under the provisions of the family reunification legislation (Wet op de Gezinshereniging) of which many “guest workers”, or labour migrants, made use from the 1970s onwards after settling in the Netherlands. Stitou is the first representative of second-generation DutchMoroccan writers. See the contribution by Yves T’Sjoen in this volume for a more elaborate discussion of the position and work of Stitou. 4 Rogi Wieg, “Heeft de grachtengordel wel eens een echte Marokkaan gezien?”, Het Parool, 13 January 1995. 5 “There have now been thirteen editions [of the writing competition], eleven authors have made a breakthrough, all were winners of the El Hizjra Literary Award. So, yes:

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El Hizjra appears to be a literary institution in Bourdieu’s “field of cultural production” considering the fact that it constitutes a stepping stone to publishing companies for Dutch-Moroccan writers in particular, as the following comparison with Dutch-Turkish writers and the paragraph on El Hizjra make clear. Dutch-Moroccan versus Dutch-Turkish writers The table on the following page lists, on the left-hand side, a number of Dutch writers of Moroccan descent, a relatively large number when compared to writers of Turkish descent, on the righthand side.6 It is worth noting that the Turkish community in the Netherlands has a historical background quite similar to the Moroccan community, in the sense that both Turkish and Moroccan migrants settled in the Netherlands as a result of labour migration (some of them were in fact political refugees who faced repression in their home countries). There has been no colonial past either between the Netherlands and Turkey, or between the Netherlands and Morocco. Both community populations are also about the same size, with the Turkish one just a bit larger.7 we were the stepping stone. Publishers, albeit ultimately only a couple of them, look more favourably on authors that come from us.” Quoted in Merlijn Schoonenboom, “Het klagerige is weg”, de Volkskrant, 30 March 2006. All translations from Dutch, unless otherwise noted, are our own. 6 Not all Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Turkish writers in the Netherlands are included in this list. It only includes aspiring literary writers (and no authors of children’s literature) who have published a novel or a collection of poems or stories in Dutch. Of the writers mentioned here, the following seven won the El Hizjra Literary Award: Hassan Bahara, Abdelkader Benali, Khalid Boudou, A. El Baraka, Said El Haji, Rashid Novaire and Mustafa Stitou. Oscar van Gelderen was involved in six debuts, either as editor at Arena or as publisher at Vassallucci: Abdelkader Benali’s Bruiloft aan zee (Wedding by the Sea, Vassallucci, 1996), Najoua Bijjir’s El weswes. Het geheime leven van jonge vrouwen (El Weswes: The Secret Life of Young Women, Vassallucci, 2001), Hafid Bouazza’s De voeten van Abdullah (Abdullah’s Feet, Arena, 1996), Khalid Boudou’s Het schnitzelparadijs (Schnitzel Paradise, Vassallucci, 2001), Said El Haji’s De dagen van Sjaitan (The Days of Shaytaan, Vassallucci, 2000), and Mustafa Stitou’s Mijn vormen (My Forms, Arena, 1994). 7 In 2010 the Dutch-Moroccan community in the Netherlands consists of 349,270 members, whereas the Dutch-Turkish community has 384,164 members (“Bevolking; generatie, geslacht, leeftijd en herkomstgroepering, 1 januari”, StatLine CBS: http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37325&D1=a&D2=0&D 3=0&D4=0&D5=0-4,137,152,215,232&D6=0,4,9,(l-1)-l&HDR=G2,G1,G3,%20T&S TB=G4,G5&VW=T [accessed 15 April 2010]).

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Netherlands 2010 Writers of Moroccan descent Writers of Turkish descent x x x x x x x x x x x x

Bahara, Hassan Benali, Abdelkader Bijjir, Najoua Bouazza, Hafid Boudou, Khalid El Baraka, A. (pseudonym of Aziza El Barakat) El Bezaz, Naima El Haji, Said Novaire, Rashid Ouariachi, Jamal Sahar, Hans (pseudonym of Farid Boukakar) Stitou, Mustafa

x Baycili, Sevtap x Gür, Halil (writes in Turkish) x Yemni, Sadik (writes in Turkish)

It has long been noticed that the difference in number between Dutch writers of Moroccan origin and of Turkish origin is quite striking8 – even more so, since the two Turkish writers mentioned at the end of the list on the right, Halil Gür and Sadik Yemni, do not write directly in Dutch, and their work is translated from Turkish into Dutch. So, that leaves us with only one writer, Sevtap Baycili, in contrast to the twelve writers of Moroccan descent on the list.9 How to explain the relatively large number of writers of Moroccan descent? Some possible answers are: 1. The frequent (negative) media attention on, and the highly charged debate about, the Moroccan minority evoked the interest in this specific literary production.10

8

See Elma Nap-Kolhoff, Turkse auteurs in Nederland: Verkenning van een onontgonnen gebied, Tilburg: Wetenschapswinkel Universiteit van Tilburg, 2002, 22. 9 Nilgün Yerli is often regarded as a Dutch-Turkish author since the publication of her book De garnalenpelster, but this work is not literary fiction, it is an autobiography, although the predicate “novel” is sometimes attributed to it. 10 For a contribution to this debate, see Paul Scheffer, “Het multiculturele drama”, NRC Handelsblad, 29 January 2000. For an analysis of the debate, see Liesbeth

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2. The tradition of telling stories among Moroccan people, because of their largely oral culture, motivated migrants with Moroccan roots to express themselves in a literary way.11 3. The fact that, within the Moroccan community, the language and culture do not pass as easily from one generation to the next as they do in the Turkish community could also have played an important role. Young Moroccans in the Netherlands are not able to write in Arabic, nor in Tamazight (Berber), whereas young Turks do not have to deal with this particular problem of language. This might be a reason why Dutch-Moroccan writers express themselves in Dutch and are more drawn to Dutch literature. 4. The presence of Amsterdam based literary institutions in the field of cultural production regarding Dutch-Moroccan literature. We will elaborate on these last two points, starting with 4. Literary institutions in the field of cultural production Graham Huggan sees literary institutions as “agents of legitimation”, as they change and shape the literary landscape: “These agents are all contenders in the struggle to validate particular writers; and the writers themselves vie for the right to attain and, in turn, confer recognition and prestige.”12 In this quote, one can recognize the classical analysis of the field of cultural production by Bourdieu. We will not address all the complexities of Bourdieu’s analysis but we would like to use some elements and terms from his analysis. Bourdieu rejects the concept of the writer as an “autonomous architect of an individual creative plan”.13 He breaks with the traditional view of art, that art is an autonomous phenomenon whose status is due entirely to its intrinsic value. Bourdieu argues that the Minnaard, New Germans, New Dutch: Literary Interventions, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008, 30. 11 Especially Moroccans from Amazigh (Berber) origin have an oral tradition, as Amazigh people did not have a written language until recently. 12 Graham Huggan, The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins, London: Routledge, 2001, 5. 13 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed”, Poetics, XII/4-5 (1983), 311-56.

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perception of art is also influenced by a certain cultural and social context. He calls this the “field of cultural production” in which literary institutions, among others, define what literature is. It is the institutions that determine whether we perceive a work as literary. Does this mean that the intrinsic quality of literature plays no role at all? One would think that a self-respecting author or publisher would always refer to and go by the artistic qualities in the literary text itself. This is mostly the case, but this is a very subjective approach and it has no verifiable theoretical basis. In short, the social status of literature is not concealed only in the literary works themselves, or in their intrinsic qualities, but rather in the images formed around them. Bourdieu calls this “the production of belief”: “the sociology of ... literature has to take as its object not only the material production but also the symbolic production of the work, i.e. the production of the value of the work or, which amounts to the same thing, of belief in the value of the work.”14 A hype is an illustrative manifestation of Bourdieu’s theory: making something more important than it is in reality through a bombardment of media attention. The result can be that people actually come to believe the hype. Institutions have the power to create hype around a work of art or a literary work. An example of hype regarding Dutch-Moroccan literature can be found in the Book Week 2001, organized by the foundation Collective Promotion of the Dutch Book (CPNB).15 That year, the theme was “writing between two cultures”. It was said that it did not really matter what one wrote: as long as the writer was from Moroccan origin and the book was a hit.16 This does not mean that the work of these writers had no literary quality; we just want to stress that there was this belief, this hype, around “exotic” writers. This corresponds with Bourdieu’s conviction that what one creates as a “newcomer” is of less importance than “being different”.17

14

Bourdieu, Field of Cultural Production, 37. For a further elaboration on this Book Week hype, see the contribution by Liesbeth Minnaard in this volume. 16 Schoonenboom, “Het klagerige is weg”. 17 Bourdieu, Field of Cultural Production, 106. 15

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Amsterdam-based literary institutions and Dutch-Moroccan writers Amsterdam is the centre of publishing in the Netherlands. Therefore, it is not surprising that the two institutions that have played a significant role in the emergence of Dutch-Moroccan literature are also based in Amsterdam: El Hizjra and Vassallucci. El Hizjra, the centre for Arabic art and culture already-mentioned in Amsterdam, might be seen as a literary institution. By organizing a writing contest with a literary award incentive, mainly for young writing talent of Moroccan or Arabic descent,18 El Hizjra changes, modest as it may be, the Dutch literary landscape. Publishing company Vassallucci has published work of Dutch-Moroccan writers who began their aspiring writing career at El Hizjra. Normally, a publishing company is the first institution with which an aspiring author is confronted. Here, it seems as if Vassallucci, the publishing company, is sharing the role of gatekeeper with El Hizjra. We will elaborate on these two players in the Dutch “field of cultural production” in the following section. El Hizjra El Hizjra is Arabic for “departure” or “migration”. The name derives from Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622CE.19 Seen from the perspective of more recent history, it denotes the flow of migrant (Moroccan) guest workers to Western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. In the first two years of its existence, El Hizjra was primarily a bookshop and its motto was (and is) “A bridge between two cultures”. In 1985 Maktabat (“Bookshop”) El Hizjra, founded by Abderazak Sbaïti (himself a Moroccan migrant) opened its doors in Amsterdam. Sbaïti’s aim in opening the bookshop was to “make a significant contribution in terms of broadening and deepening the knowledge of Arab culture in the Netherlands”.20 Later, when it received state funding, El Hizjra increased its activities. In 1987, the centre for Arabic art and culture was founded 18

Since 2003, the target group has been broadened from Moroccan and Arab young people to young people who have at least one non-Dutch parent. 19 The beginning of the Islamic calendar. 20 Cocky Brouwer, “Maktabat El Hizjra: Een Arabische boekhandel in Amsterdam”, Boekblad: nieuwsblad voor het boekenvak, CLII/20 (1985), 10.

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in order to organize literary and cultural activities such as lectures, debates, film screenings, theatre plays, and music shows. The aim of the centre – in line with the motto of the bookshop – is to “create a bridge between Arabic and Dutch culture through language and culture”21 and to put into practice the foundation’s second motto: “Earth is my homeland and Humanity is my family.”22 With this motto, El Hizjra wishes to communicate the fact that it wants to emphasize those elements of Arab culture that stand for a tolerant society, with equal rights for women and cultural and religious minorities. In 1992, El Hizjra decided to start a writing competition with a literary award incentive, mainly for young writing talent of Moroccan or Arabic descent. (In the early 1990s the “second-generation Moroccan immigrants” – either born or raised in the Netherlands – entered Dutch cultural life.) Writers can enter previously unpublished work to compete for the annual El Hizjra literary award in various categories (including prose, poetry, theatre texts, and essays), written in Dutch, in Arabic, or – a recent addition – in Tamazight (Berber). The winners receive a modest sum of money, can follow a series of master classes to develop their talent, and their contribution is published in a collection. The writing competition has evolved into the centre’s currently most important national activity and is a unique initiative in Europe, considering its achievement of catalysing a fairly large number of migrant writing careers. The competition is successful and regarded as a springboard for young talented writers, given that many authors have come into contact with literary publishers through this route. Simone IJben confirms this when she refers to El Hizjra as stepping-stone to a publisher. At the same time, she refines this perception by indicating that, ultimately, only a couple of publishers are more “well-disposed” towards winners of the El Hizjra literature prize.23 The best-known winners of the El Hizjra prize who have found a publisher are: Mustafa Stitou (1992), initially published by Arena and Vassallucci; 21

Raad voor Cultuur (Council for Culture), “Subsidieplanadvies 2009-2012”, 15 May 2008 http://www.cultuur.nl/files/pdf/Subsidieplan/20080515120000.441.pdf (accessed 15 April 2010). 22 Taken from the Lebanese writer and mystic Khalil Gibran. 23 Quoted in Schoonenboom, “Het klagerige is weg”.

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Abdelkader Benali (1994 and 1995), initially published by Vassallucci; Rashid Novaire (1996), published by De Geus; Khalid Boudou (1998), initially published by Vassallucci; Said El Haji (1999), initially published by Vassallucci; Rodhan Al-Khalidi (1999), initially published by Bornmeer and De Arbeiderspers; and Hassan Bahara (2000 and 2001, under a pseudonym), published by Van Gennep. Vassallucci was clearly the most “well-disposed” publisher for Dutch-Moroccan literature. The social importance of the prize is twofold: first, writers of Moroccan and Arab descent are encouraged to express themselves by way of literature and to establish themselves in Dutch literature; second, the prize helps to make perceptions of the “Dutch-Moroccan community” more nuanced, because El Hizjra presents a positive image of young people from a population group who often feature in a negative light in the media. There is no successful Turkish equivalent to the El Hizjra writing competition in the Netherlands. Although Amsterdam has Troya (an art and literature foundation established in 1998) for the Turkish community, its various literary activities (for example, the literary platform Tulpia) have not yet yielded talented Turkish writers who have published a novel or collection of poetry in Dutch. In order to explain this discrepancy in the number of writers with Moroccan and Turkish roots, we will look beyond an institutional explanation. In the second part of this article (see “An intractable language problem” and further) we discuss a linguistic distinction between Turks and Moroccans. We believe that it is the combination of both factors, institutional and linguistic, that explains the bigger number of DutchMoroccan writers in the Dutch literary field. Vassallucci Although its Italian name does not suggest Dutchness, Vassallucci was a Dutch publishing company founded in Amsterdam in 1995. It closed in 2006. The foundation of the publishing company was a tribute to the late publisher Michel Vassallucci, who died of AIDS in 1994. Oscar van Gelderen and Lex Spaans, both former employees of Michel Vassallucci, founded it. The publishing company did not focus exclusively on literature with an exotic Mediterranean feel, but

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Vassallucci did discover a niche market by focusing on “multicultural literature”, including Dutch-Moroccan writers.24 In its relatively short existence, Vassallucci did change and shape the Dutch literary landscape.25 As journalist and writer Joris van Casteren puts it: “without Vassallucci migrant literature never would have found its place in the Netherlands.”26 There was no direct connection between El Hizjra and Vassallucci, but Vassallucci was certainly one of the publishing companies which had, as Simone IJben puts it, a more favourable approach towards authors with a foreign background, such as Dutch-Moroccan writers. Of all the Dutch publishers that aimed to give their list a multicultural signature, Vassallucci was the publisher that launched the careers of most Dutch writers of Moroccan descent. It has been the starting point for the writing career of successful and less-successful Dutch-language authors of Moroccan origin, such as Mustafa Stitou, Abdelkader Benali, Khalid Boudou, Said el Haji, and Najoua Bijjir. Stitou and Benali in particular have been very successful in Dutch letters; aside the El Hizjra prize they have both won several other prestigious literary awards. One might be inclined to conclude that Vassallucci had a particular interest in Dutch writers of Moroccan origin. However, the publisher did not scout specifically for talented Moroccan writers, but rather for multicultural writers in general. It just turned out that a relatively high number of this group’s most talented writers were of Moroccan origin. 24

See Lisa Kuitert’s study Vleugelspelers: Uitgevers tussen twee culturen (Utrecht: Forum, 2001) for the history of publishing “multicultural literature” before Vassallucci. Publishing companies such as In de Knipscheer, Conserve, De Geus and Van Gennep also focused on this genre. However, none of them has been as successful as Vassallucci in publishing young writing talent with Moroccan roots. Vassallucci’s “new publishing culture” (see below) certainly did not do the publishing company any harm commercially and it attracted a relatively large number of DutchMoroccan writers. 25 After being taken over by concern PCM in 2001 Vassallucci was eventually faced with imposed profit margins the publishing company could not meet and after reluctantly merging with the publishing company Prometheus in 2005, Vassallucci was confronted with clashes concerning publishing culture, which led to its closure in 2006. 26 Joris van Casteren, “Totaalproduct boek”, De groene Amsterdammer, 9 February 2000: “zonder Vassallucci [was het] in Nederland [niet] van een serieuze allochtonenliteratuur ... gekomen.”

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Certainly, this can in part be attributed to the El Hizjra foundation and its successful El Hizjra writing competition. In its search for new talent, Vassallucci gained a reputation for “aggressive publishing” and had to put up with a fair bit of criticism.27 It was maligned as well as praised for its business-oriented approach. Certain strategies were used to market migrant writers: Vassallucci allegedly emphasized an author’s personal history, paying less attention to the quality of the book. Van Gelderen denied this and gave assurances that a good manuscript is the starting point, after which the decision can be taken to exploit biographical elements in the publishing strategy.28 He introduced a new publishing culture that consisted of personally scouting for literary talent at literary and culture festivals, and entering into co-operative partnerships with them.29 In short, he “didn’t wait for the post to drop onto the doormat”.30 This open, proactive approach did Vassallucci no harm. In this way, it was able to establish itself successfully as a small independent company in the world of publishing in the Netherlands. In Boekblad, Maarten Dessing refers to Vassallucci as “the most talked-about publisher of the 1990s”.31 Van Gelderen explains the choice in favour of multicultural literature as follows: “I may sound somewhat like a muesli-eating sandal-wearer, but I really believe that writers from other cultures have something to contribute to Dutch literature.”32 An intractable language problem At this stage, we think that it is crucial to elaborate on the language situation in Morocco, mentioned earlier as point 3 in our list of possible explanations, because it helps us clarify the situation of 27 Peter Buwalda, “Oscar van Gelderen: Interview Agressief uitgeven”, Vrij Nederland, 15 June 2002. 28 Maarten Dessing, “Wij geven auteurs géén kleding- en haaradviezen: Dubbelinterview met Oscar van Gelderen en Lex Spaans”, Boekblad, 2 April 1999. 29 See, for example, Kuitert, Vleugelspelers. 30 Van Gelderen quoted in Leonoor Wagenaar, “De literaire meerwaarde van multiculti”, Het Parool, 1 December 2000. 31 Dessing, “Wij geven auteurs géén kleding- en haaradviezen”. 32 Van Gelderen quoted in Wagenaar, “De literaire meerwaarde”: “Het klinkt misschien wat wereldwinkelig, wat geitenharensokkerig, maar ik denk echt dat de schrijvers uit andere culturen iets toe te voegen hebben aan de Nederlandse literatuur.”

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Dutch-Moroccan writers. We wish to stress that there is absolutely no choice involved in the fact that these writers write in Dutch: they never had a choice between their mother-tongue (in the literal sense of the language of the mother, or of their first infant years, etc.) and the Dutch language they acquired at school. When it comes to language, Moroccans (and Moroccan writers in particular) are confronted with serious problems which should not be underestimated. To begin with, there is the question of diglossia.33 All Moroccans (indeed all Arabs), without exception though to differing degrees, speak one language (their dialect) and write another (Classical Arabic). This arises from the fact that written Arabic, sacred because it is the language of the Koran, has remained virtually unchanged since the time of Muhammad’s preaching, fourteen centuries ago. Admittedly, linguists could point out that there are now only ten “verb forms” instead of fifteen, and that certain ways of expressing the intensity of a verb are in practice no longer used although they are common in the Koran, etc.34 But the fact remains that the Arabic in which one pursues an education, and in which scholarly lectures, political speeches, and judicial verdicts are delivered, is not the Arabic spoken in the street, between friends, or within the family. This situation varies according to each country but it exists throughout the Arab world. And it is not close to being resolved. In 1936, Bichr Fares published an article in Revue des Études Islamiques, entitled “Des difficultés d’ordre linguistique, culturel et social que rencontre un écrivain arabe moderne, spécialement en Égypte”. Seventy years later, in 2006, Chérif Choubachy, a former Egyptian Vice-Minister of Culture, published a violent tract against Classical 33

See the very interesting discussion of “diglossia” by Declerq and Boyden in this volume. However we think that their remarks that “migrant authors do not just reproduce the empirical linguistic reality in which their speech community is involved, but rather dramatize the interplay of languages for their own benefit (comical relief, group assertion, political activism, etc.)” must be qualified by the fact that most Dutch-Moroccan authors lack a sound knowledge of both varieties of the language in a diglossic situation (“high”, that is, Classical Arabic, and “low”, that is, colloquial Moroccan) since most of them come from the Rif, which is a Berber region of Morocco. 34 Régis Blachère and Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Grammaire de l’arabe classique, Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2004.

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Arabic, which he accused of restricting the creativity and development of the Arabs. Between these two dates, hundreds of articles have been devoted to this question. It is difficult to explain to non-Arabs, without going into technical details, why this problem is so complex. Indeed, he/she might protest: “But the solution is simple: write in dialect! Rabelais did, and so did Céline …” A number of Arab authors are already doing so, or attempting to, more or less successfully. Others, like Naguib Mahfouz, the 1988 Nobel Prize winner, are trying an intermediate solution: they write in Classical Arabic but switch to a dialectal form for the dialogue. They are forced to do so: when it comes to dialogue, it is impossible to maintain the fiction that Arabs express themselves in the language of the Koran. Classical Arabic is the primary language of no one. However, it would require not two or three, but several thousand modifications to Classical Arabic in the areas of grammar, syntax, lexicon, etc., to bring it closer to the dialects. So, clearly, the scope of such an endeavour is colossal. Let us digress for a moment in order to respond in advance to those who would say: “Well, no writer, whether French, Flemish or Finnish, ever writes in his primary language because the written language is always a distinct entity – that is precisely what makes it the written language. So why don’t Arab writers just continue to write in Classical Arabic and so what if it is not their primary language?” To this objection, the answer is that there is no continuity between the two languages in the same way that there is continuity between the language of a French youth who left school at fourteen and the formal French of, say, a Pascal Quignard. The young man could read a text by Quignard (although he would certainly have to consult a dictionary from time to time). In contrast, an uneducated Arab youth could not even begin to read a highly literary text written in Arabic: for him or her, all the words, syntax, verb forms, etc., would be foreign. For the Moroccan writer, the language itself, the very foundation of his work as a writer, poses an almost insurmountable obstacle. When it comes to style, the nature of the problem is immediately evident. That one’s body (the senses) and psyche colour the primary language in an original and unique manner specific to each individual is entirely conceivable (writers would not exist otherwise). To paraphrase

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Baudelaire, “scents, colours, and sounds” are echoed in every person in a unique way, because each person has encountered them – in flesh, in childhood, in one’s discovery of the world – in the unique way that is one’s personal trajectory, one’s identity. But what happens when one wants to transcribe into another language this form of identity that constitutes style? It is practically impossible. It is not just the lexicon that is different but also the syntax. Developing a style under these conditions is clearly difficult. As for language codes, certain of them were established over a thousand years ago. The poetry of the Arabs is considered their civilization’s most beautiful contribution. Major contemporary poets, like Adonis or Mahmoud Darwish, continue this tradition. But in the case of prose, and the novel in particular, things are much less clear. Recalling the link between the appearance of the European novel and the rising power of the bourgeoisie is a sufficient reminder that a literary genre is never free of ties to society. Theory aside, all the surveys show that the bourgeoisie, or let us say the middle classes in the Arab world, hardly read at all (except for works of religious edification) and that they are not seeking a reflection or glorification of their existence in the novel.35 Even the most celebrated of Arab writers, Naguib Mahfouz, is more widely known than read and the print runs of his works in Arabic do not surpass ten thousand for a potential readership of two hundred million people (compare to another Nobel Prize laureate, Gabriel García Márquez, with approximately the same number of potential readers: the print runs of his novels are more than one million). This phenomenon is explained in part by the linguistic problems just described. So what is left for the Moroccan novelist who insists on taking up the pen? Those who do so in Arabic form an elite who write for an elite. There are others who write in French or Spanish. And although the demise of French-language Moroccan literature was announced more than half a century ago, it has never been more prevalent. Admittedly it poses formidable problems. The Moroccan writer uses the language of the Other (the West) or the language of others (the French).

35

The latest survey can be found in Economia, February 2010, Morocco.

CESEM,

Rabat,

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The Berber question joined the language debate that started with independence (What to do with French? What to do with Arabic?). But it only started to gain momentum in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Until ten years ago, Berber was not yet a written language, at least not officially. It was essentially oral. Since then, the King of Morocco has created a Royal Institute for Amazigh (Berber) Culture that has established the basis of an adequate written form. But we are just at the beginning of a venture that could – possibly – lead to the balance of language, style, and codes that the Moroccan writer so cruelly lacks. Other Moroccans are betting on the codification of the dialect, which they would like to see recognized as an entirely separate language. Linguists generally support their point of view. But this demand is causing outrage among proponents of a pure Classical Arabic, be it for religious reasons, or out of nationalism (“it’s the official language of the country and it embodies a certain ideal of national unity”), or on behalf of pan-Arab nationalism (Classical Arabic is almost the only thing the twenty-two members of the Arab League have in common).36 The situation of the Moroccan writer can thus be characterized as follows: between classical languages, various dialects, language of the ex-colonizer, even languages with no local ties (we are beginning to see Moroccans who publish in English), Moroccan writers have to make do with whatever language they can express themselves in. That is why we can now posit a very important thesis: secondgeneration Moroccan writers who write in a foreign tongue, say Dutch, are in no way victims of a state of affairs caused by their “exile” – we use this word in a very general sense. They are not victims of a post-colonial order which puts them in a sub-optimal situation. In fact, we think that it is precisely the contrary: their “exile” has allowed them to solve the intractable language problem which plagues their less-fortunate compatriots who have stayed in Morocco. Dutch or English or whatever language they write in has emancipated them in the same manner French has been an instrument of emancipation in the Maghreb in the latest half-century. The learning of Dutch by young second-generation Moroccans can be placed in this 36

Fouad Laroui, Le Drame linguistique marocain, Paris and Casablanca: Zellige/Le Fennec, 2011, 123-26.

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context. Given the linguistic problem inherent in the situation in their country of origin (or rather their parents’ situation), they no doubt gain enormous profit through learning a foreign European language at a mother-tongue level: it actually gives them a voice. It is worth noting here that there is a difference between the Dutch-Moroccan novelists and the stand-up comedians or hip hop artists: the latter can use their primary language (Moroccan-Arabic dialect or one of the three Moroccan-Berber dialects), alone or in combination with Dutch, because they do exist orally. It is only the novelists that have to express themselves entirely in Dutch – even if they insert transcribed Arabic or Berber words or even whole sentences. “Turks” versus “Moroccans”: an enigma explained Coming back to the contrast mentioned between Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Turkish writers, there are two points to be considered: firstly, Turkey was never colonized (in the modern area); therefore, its inhabitants were never subjected to the same kind of linguistic upheavals as Moroccans. (Admittedly, they were subjected to another kind of upheaval with Ataturk’s 1928 language reform, when Arabic letters were substituted for Latin letters. Turkish classics are often written in the pre-reform language. However that important change seems to us less intractable than diglossia compounded by colonization.) Secondly, they did not and do not experience the diglossic situation so problematic for Moroccans. In practice these two points mean that a would-be Dutch-Turkish writer today can read Turkish classics which were written in, say, 1954, as long as he/she speaks/reads Turkish; whereas, for a would-be Dutch-Moroccan writer, the classics of 1954, Sefrioui’s La Boîte à merveilles and Chraïbi’s Le Passé simple, are both written in French, and therefore not very easily accessible. Further, the aspiring DutchTurkish writer can read those classics in a language which is his or her primary language; whereas, if his or her Dutch-Moroccan equivalent decided to set aside French books and look for those which were written in Arabic (that is, Classical Arabic), it still would not be his or her primary language, because of diglossia. This double dilemma helps to explain why Dutch-Moroccan writers feel invariably forced to express themselves in Dutch, whereas Dutch-Turkish writers can choose between Dutch and Turkish. This

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argument adds up to the institutional explanation of why there are more Dutch-Moroccan writers than Dutch-Turkish writers in the Dutch literary domain. The writers of Turkish origin have a choice. The Dutch-Moroccan writers do not.37 Effect on Dutch literary landscape Almost all of the second-generation Dutch-Moroccan writers were born in Morocco. However, being raised in the Netherlands, the city of Amsterdam was for most of them crucial to the start of their writing career because of Amsterdam-based institutions such as El Hizjra and a publishing company as Vassallucci. The annual El Hizjra Literary Award changed and shaped the literary landscape, as publishing companies adopted a more favourable approach towards authors who won the literary award. El Hizjra can thus be seen as a literary institution that successfully played a role in the Dutch “field of cultural production”: an important role as “the influx of new writers is a change in literature itself – the nature of our discourse”.38 El Hizjra adopted the role of gatekeeper from the publishing company, as the first institution with which aspiring writers are confronted. As we have shown, for many Dutch writers of Moroccan origin it constituted a stepping-stone to the publishing world. Without an open-minded, innovatory publishing company like Vassallucci, El Hizjra’s efforts would not have had such an effect on the Dutch literary landscape as it has now had. By adopting a combined institutional and linguistic approach, we have given a plausible explanation for the relatively large number of writers of Moroccan descent in the Netherlands. We have also offered two other factors that help to explain this large number: the frequent 37

Admittedly, in today’s globalized world, young Moroccans and Turks in the Netherlands do not just draw on the tradition of literary texts from Morocco or Turkey respectively. However, the focus is on the possibility to choose the language in which to write. Even if the technical problems to which we have alluded were miraculously solved, even if diglossia vanished, the Dutch-Moroccan writers would still have no written literary corpus in their primary language (one of the many dialects of Morocco): they would have to try and write in a complete void, whereas their DutchTurkish equivalents would have a whole tradition, and even a Nobel Prize winner (Orhan Pamuk), from which to start. 38 Finding Your Way in the Dutch Literary Landscape: Handbook for Writers, eds Christel Jansen and Louis Stiller, Amsterdam: Fonds voor de Letteren, 2001, 6.

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media attention on and the highly charged debate about Moroccan minorities, and the tradition among Moroccan people because of their largely oral culture of telling stories. Both factors can be considered incentives, but seem of lesser importance to us than the institutional and linguistic explanation. Such a combination of causes (institutional plus linguistic) seems to us characteristic of the Dutch situation. It would be interesting to investigate whether such a combination can be found in other European countries with a large Moroccan community, including a sizeable second generation.

“WE ARE NOT BODIES ONLY, BUT WINGED SPIRITS”: METAMORPHOSIS IN THE WORK OF HAFID BOUAZZA HENRIËTTE LOUWERSE

In 2010 the architect and artist Matteo Pericoli published a book of drawings under the title The City Out of My Window: 63 Views on New York. For his book, Pericoli visited famous and less-famous New Yorkers to record the view from each person’s study. Paul Goldberger in the introduction to the book explains the significance: “Matteo Pericoli ... is telling us that your window is the frame through which you see your own picture of the world, a picture that is yours and no one else’s.”1 It is not a coincidence Pericoli visits mainly artists and writers for his book: it is the link with art as “a window on the world” that gives the drawings a metaphorical charge. The irony of the collection is that we are not offered each window owner’s view on the world, but above all Pericoli’s interpretation. Admittedly, the window owners get to slip in a few comments on the side, but their literal marginality serves to underscore their insignificant role in the project and enhances the sense of centrality Pericoli’s drawings offer.2 Pericoli is aware of this, and he neatly captures the ambiguity in a title which leaves unclear to whose window the “my window” of the title refers. It is the metaphor of the window the novelist, translator, essayist, columnist, and political commentator Hafid Bouazza employs to illustrate his position as an artist and his view on art which he outlines 1

Goldberger quoted in Sean O’Hagan, “Matteo Pericoli’s New York City Views”, The Observer, 1 August 2010. 2 To underline the point, the photographer Annie Leibovitz offered Pericoli a set of photographs of the view from her window. Significantly Pericoli refused to make use of them: “He insisted on working in his own way, stamping his own presence on the subject” (ibid.).

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in his essay Een beer in bontjas (A Bear in a Fur Coat, 2001). Bouazza uses the window image primarily to rid himself of the strictures placed on his writing by labels such as “migrant author”, “Dutch-Moroccan author”, and “multicultural” or even “ethnic author”. Bouazza resists the assumption that his personal circumstances not only affect but also shape his art. In Een beer in bontjas – an artistic manifesto disguised as an autobiography – he energetically states that real art can only be inspired and born from art, not from personal trauma, “authorship does not arise from the first trauma, but from the first discovery of literature”.3 For Bouazza, the move from Morocco to the Netherlands at the age of seven is no more than a move towards the “attic window” or the “pillar of light”, both metaphors for the discovery of art and, particularly, of literature: “There was immigration in the year 7 post H.B., the colourful arrival in Arkel, the pillar of light in the attic.”4 The arrival of the family in the small Dutch town of Arkel, draws its significance not from the expected culture shock, rupture, sense of homelessness, and disorientation (the stock ingredients of migration writing), but from its movement towards “the pillar of light in the attic”. This beam of light falling through the attic window in the young boy’s bedroom symbolizes the lure of art as a means to transcend reality, the pull and the power of the imagination that reaches beyond the limitations of everyday life. The linking of the artistic awakening with the date of migration only serves to emphasize that the former, the physical move from Morocco to Arkel, was merely of a geographical nature, but that the latter, the movement towards the light through the attic window and the discovery of the power of the imagination, is of far greater significance, as this constitutes a mystical transformation: the birth of the artist. The lure of the sky through the attic window prompts Bouazza to evoke a parallel with Icarus: “the piece of sky beckons, like the sun must have beckoned Icarus.”5 The appeal of the view “on higher 3

Hafid Bouazza, Een beer in bontjas, 2001, Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2004, 16: “schrijverschap ontstaat echter niet bij het eerste trauma, maar bij de eerste ondekking van literatuur.” 4 Ibid., 95: “Er was immigratie in het jaar 7 na H.B., de kleurige aankomst in Arkel, de lichtpilaar op zolder.” 5 Ibid., 91: “het stukje hemel lokt, zo ongeveer zoals de zon Icarus moet hebben gelokt.”

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things” which the window has come to signify, is clearly twofold: it invites filling in, shaping, and moulding according to individual design and requirements. Like a blank canvas, the attraction of the view lies in its absence of content; it therefore does not invite recording but creating. Secondly, it holds the promise of higher flights of a movement bigger than oneself: the potential of a transgressive gesture caught in the image of Icarus, the boy who learns to fly.6 Bouazza restates the appeal of Icarus more emphatically when he confirms: “A mere lad with wax wings, between sea and light, beneath him the pavement of the earth and above him an incensed sun: emblem of all my worlds!”7 Icarus – suspended in mid air, exhilarated by the power to fly, unbound, untied, and free if only temporarily and artificially – indeed appears a fitting metaphor for Bouazza as an artist. His work is pervaded with a desire to escape, to revel in artistic freedom and to reject expectations and restrictions to which his personal life story may give rise. Within the Dutch context, no author with a multicultural background has put up a more explicitly advertised resistance to the labels attached to his writing as Hafid Bouazza.8 From his earliest appearance, he positioned himself as an autonomous author giving expression to a highly individual artistic drive through literary texts. However, there is the recognition that escape is temporary, that the wings are unreliable, that the reality of the pavement will never go away. Bouazza’s celebration of escape is always shot through with the realization of its ultimate impossibility. Born in Morocco in 1970, Bouazza moved to the Netherlands at the age of seven and published his first collection of short stories De voeten van Adullah (Abdullah’s Feet) in 1996. Since then he has published novels, novellas, literary reviews, a play, two librettos, a book on opera, a collection of essays, and translations of plays by 6

In addition to the attic window, Bouazza develops a similar movement with the image of a looking glass in reference to Lewis Carroll’s Alice books in which children readily move from reality into fantasy worlds by creeping through the mirror. 7 Ibid., 95: “Een knaapje met wassen vleugels, tussen zee en licht, beneden hem de stoepsteen van de aarde en boven hem een vertoornde zon: embleem van al mijn werelden!” 8 See Henriëtte Louwerse, Homeless Entertainment: On Hafid Bouazza’s Literary Writing, Bern and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007, 12-17; Liesbeth Minnaard, New Germans, New Dutch: Literary Interventions, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008, 107-11.

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Shakespeare and Marlowe. He is also active as a translator and commentator of Arabic poetry and was awarded several literary prizes including the prestigious Gouden Uil (Golden Owl) in 2004 for his novel Paravion. In addition to his literary activity there are a number of extra-literary factors contributing to public interest in Bouazza. Bouazza makes regular television and radio appearances including a short documentary in 2005 by the filmmaker Pieter Verhoeff9 in which the author is filmed in his favourite pub in Amsterdam discussing art with his cronies as well as at his mother’s kitchen table in Arkel where he grew up. His personal battle with alcohol addiction, about which he openly reported in the national newspaper De Volkskrant in January 2009,10 as well as his polemic and frequently cynical stance against repressive tendencies within Islam in general and the position of women in particular, have also contributed to the strong extra-literary image of the author. Writer, commentator, Islam expert, literary mediator: the composite picture is one of Bouazza as a national celebrity who has risen far beyond the station normally reserved for literary figures. Bouazza distinguishes himself from his contemporaries by more than personal circumstance or amorous media relations alone. His resolve to being treated as an individual rather than as a representative of a cultural group is also not his defining feature. Rather, it is as an author that he breaks the mould most significantly: as an author he has kept his audience continually captivated, puzzled and mystified. “Stepping through a window” into an imaginary world is an essential part of Bouazza’s strategy to entertain but equally to confuse and challenge his readers. In this article I will concentrate on a feature of Bouazza’s writing that has received relatively little critical attention thus far: his use of metamorphosis, or shape-shifting, to sculpt a highly fluid, Bouazzian universe. Bouazza’s use of the image of Icarus is a case in point: lingering somewhere between metaphor and metamorphosis (more than an image but falling short of a full transformation), this highly transgressive figure expresses Bouazza’s desire for suspension. Bouazza typically lingers on this faultline, as the following description 9

Pieter Verhoeff, Programme about Hafid Bouazza, VPRO (Dutch Public Broadcasting): R.A.M. 25 September 2005. 10 Hafid Bouazza, “Help me van de drank”, Volkskrant Magazine, 3 January 2009.

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from Een beer in bontjas illustrates. The surprise of the narratorial voice at Bouazza’s not flying away but walking (flying clearly being his more natural state) makes the image all the more powerful: Hafid Bouazza … is vertrokken. Ik denk dat we allemaal verwachtten dat hij via het balkon zou vertrekken, alsnog de Icarusvleugels zou openslaan. Maar geloof het of niet, hij liep gewoon, enigszins bedeesd en onwennig, maar toch: met een wisseling van voeten en zwaaiende armen, gewis.11

Throughout his work Bouazza employs metamorphosis as a literary tool to express his ideas about art and human identity, to communicate his views on parallel perspectives, on ambiguity and multiplicity. However, I will start with a discussion of an aspect of Bouazza’s writing that forms a crucial part of his metamorphic art, and that has attracted most critical attention from the day Bouazza burst onto the literary scene: his language. Word-painter Bouazza’s reputation as a word-painter was established with the flowery style of his debut De voeten van Abdullah (1996). Bouazza’s use of archaic Dutch words, neologisms and unexpected word combinations, as well as his baroque style and his preference for long descriptions attracted much critical attention and were almost invariably linked with the author’s other cultural and linguistic baggage.12 It was readily assumed that classic and modern Arabic literature provided the explanation for what was clearly a very unDutch style of writing.13 Significantly when, in 1996, Bouazza was 11

Bouazza, Een beer in bontjas, 113: “Hafid Bouazza … has left. I think that we all expected him to leave from the balcony, opening the Icarus wings after all. But believe it or not, he just walked off, somewhat timid and tentatively, but still: with alternate feet and waving arms, definitely.” 12 The interview by Maartje Somers in Het Parool is even accompanied by the special inset “Dutch according to Bouazza”: a word list complete with a definition or a brief commentary by Bouazza (“Mooie woorden”, Parool, 1 May 1998). 13 For example, Reinjan Mulder in his review of De voeten van Abdullah for NRC Handelsblad (7 July 1996) remarks: “His writing reminds you of the baroque quality of classical and modern Arabic literature, with a pronounced preference for metaphor and long sentences.” The idea that language and style reflect the author’s cultural and linguistic background is also frequently voiced in English language reviews. A good

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awarded the Du Perron prize for De voeten van Abdullah the jury concluded: De verdiensten van De voeten van Abdullah zijn vooral gelegen in de impuls die de Nederlandse vertelkunst en literaire taal krijgen toegediend. De uit Marokko afkomstige Bouazza weet de motieven en de stijl van de Arabische literatuur te integreren in de Nederlandse letteren.14

Bouazza himself has always categorically denied that his writing style was inspired by this knowledge of Arabic, on the contrary, it was the Dutch language and its literary tradition that shaped his voice, particularly the artistic positioning and the craft of the “Eighties movement” – a highly influential literary movement at the end of the nineteenth century that highlighted artistic craft as distinct from social or moral responsibilities.15 Bouazza’s novella Momo (1998) further demonstrated his attempt to pin down the world of the senses, the world of sound, colour and light in its various intensities. Bouazza commented himself: “I am constantly searching for words that convey

example is Jonathan Raban, who comments on the language of Ahdaf Soueif (Egyptian-born but publishing in English): “a language of great eloquence and great simplicity that was not entirely English in the way an English person would write. She was able to somehow have an outsider’s Egyptian eye on the language, and somehow prune it, simplify it, treat it almost as an object” (quoted in Aida Edemariam, “Mapping the Divide”, Guardian Review, 11 June 2005, 20-23). 14 Jury Report E. du Perronprijs 1996, e-mail to the author, 2 February 2000: “The merit of De voeten van Abdullah lies particularly in the impulse it gives to Dutch narrative art and to literary language. Bouazza, who is Moroccan born, manages to integrate the motifs and the style of Arabic literature into Dutch literature.” 15 For instance, in Bouazza, Een beer in bontjes, 101: “Lezers die een exotische melodie in de stijl van Hafid Bouazza herkennen en die aan zijn Arabische achtergrond toeschrijven, vergeten dat die melodie gespeeld wordt op de vedel en de trombone van de Nederlandse taal …. Men is blind voor of zelfs afkerig van de overdaad die de Nederlandse taal kenmerkt, maar staart zich blind op gedroomde exotica” (“Readers who recognize an exotic melody in Hafid Bouazza’s style and ascribe this to his Arabic background forget that that melody is played on the viol and trombone of the Dutch language .… They are blind to and even repelled by the abundance that typifies the Dutch language but are mesmerized by the frills of dreamt up exotica”). See also Minnaard’s article in this volume.

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tastes, smells, impressions, sensations in the most accurate way.”16 For instance, when he tries to catch the sound of the wind in the trees, he uses a sequence of unusual compound nouns experimenting both with words for leaves or greenery and with words that catch the sound of the wind: “shady susurrations, sibilant leafage, moist murmurings, languished rustling, leafy whispers.”17 Bouazza’s unexpected language stood out even more because of his personal circumstances. As Declerq and Boyden convincingly argue in this volume, some bicultural authors draw on the mixing of languages to express otherness. Using unfamiliar words is part of a strategy employed by migration writers to express and evoke a sense of alienation and thus confront the reader with the migrant condition. The most common tactic is the introduction of words from their other language into the Dutch text, usually in italics. In most cases a glossary of foreign words is provided to explain words or phrases taken from the writer’s other language. Typically, a glossary of these strange terms is placed at the back of the book and often the explanations are quite elaborate.18 This list of explanations has an othering effect on the reader who has to turn to the back of the book to find the Dutch translations. Bouazza also frequently confronts the readers with strange words that will be unfamiliar to the average Dutch reader. Some of these words are of his own creation such as minnelonken (“to flirt”) and gratsjpen (“biting in an apple”). However, the majority of Bouazza’s unfamiliar words, which may at first appear to be wilful neologisms, are in fact obsolete Dutch words, such as daljen (“playful fighting”), monkelen (“to smile”) and nes (“moist”). Bouazza’s abundant use of unfamiliar words underlines that this world of words is other than the usual. However, the crucial point is that whereas migrant writers use unknown words from another language (their own), Bouazza perversely but impressively uses strange words from the Dutch 16 Bert Vanegeren, “Hafid Bouazza, schrijver zonder land”, Humo, 26 May 1998: “Ik ben gefascineerd door de tastbare wereld, en daarom ben ik constant op zoek naar woorden die smaken, geuren, indrukken, sensaties het best weergeven.” 17 Hafid Bouazza, Momo, Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1998, 41: “lommerruis, loverruisel, nat gebruisel, lomerritsel, lofgeruis.” My translation is woefully inadequate and does not retain the alliteration of the original. 18 Dutch migration authors such as Naima el Bezaz, Said el Haji, Hasan Bahara, Kader Abdolah, Fouad Laroui have all made glossaries at the back of their novels.

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language itself. He confronts the reader with the unfamiliar which on closer inspection turns out to be home-grown, sprouting from the Dutch linguistic heritage. Bouazza challenges the received nativemigrant opposition by exploring known and unknown, otherness and “own-ness” within the same culture. His concern is above the expected us-them oppositions. Bouazza’s world of words ventures into the space – or non-space – of the barely definable and in order to do that he exploits his language to the full. For Bouazza language is much more than a descriptive tool; it is through language that the power of the imagination can be released. Language, like music, can open up new realms that lie beyond the cognate level to trigger what he calls zielenvreugde (“joyfulness of the soul”): the opening up of barely accessible regions of the mind: “The effect that language can have on the mind is intoxicating, stimulating, yes even narcotic.”19 To unleash language’s narcotic effect, Bouazza stretches, shapes, and moulds his language to create “a miracle of metaphor and metamorphosis” in which both meaning and form merge.20 The flexibility Bouazza seeks in language, he seeks equally in his literary tropes, his use of metaphor and more specifically, his use of metamorphoses. In Bouazza’s writing characters change shape and form because a non-human form, or a non-fixed form, is a more accurate expression of the fluid state he wishes to evoke. Similar to the way Bouazza moulds language, he moulds his characters to express as precisely as possible their state of being – or better perhaps, of mind. His characters’ seamless moves from one shape to another further underscores Bouazza’s ideas about human identity and exposes the myth of oneness, the integer, the all-in-one preached not only in monotheist religions but equally implied in theories about multiculturalism and cultural identity. I will continue with a discussion of metamorphoses in general and proceed to discuss this literary trope in connection with Bouazza’s 2009 novella, Spotvogel.

19

Hafid Bouazza, Heidense vreugde: Gepeins en gezang, Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2011, 22: “Het effect dat taal op de geest kan hebben is bedwelmend, stimulerend, ja zelfs narcotisch.” 20 Ibid., 25.

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Shape-shifting The theme of transformation in literature is synonymous with the founding text of the metamorphic tradition, Ovid’s classical work on myths and legends, Metamorphoses. In fifteen books, Ovid records countless cases of metamorphosis culminating in the principle of life in the words of Pythagoras: “all things do change.”21 Change of shape, of life form is presented as the principle of life: it explains life and nature and it secures its continuation. Yet the Pythagorean philosophy Ovid outlines at the close of his Metamorphoses does not summarize the full story of the long poem: in Ovid mutation is neither always life-giving nor a guarantee of continuation – mutation is used for pleasure as well as for punishment (deserved or undeserved) and many transformations are eternal and non-reversible. Ovidian transformation is neither consistently good nor bad, it is not linear, and it does not always imply eternal change. It is however always spectacular and dramatic deriving its impact not simply from for the sudden change but above all from the incompleteness of the movement. Even if there are no lingering physical clues, the two states of being of the metamorphic subject invariably remain activated: at once itself and the other – hovering somewhere between metaphor and metonymy.22 As an example, Daphne turning into a laurel is dramatic exactly because in her tree-state she somehow also remains the beautiful nymph.23 In Ovid’s world, oneness is not an option and the composite cosmos of Ovid transformational world is anything but coherent. Scholars of metamorphosis will no doubt object to this all too brief discussion of the metamorphic trope yet it suffices at this point to illustrate the attraction of metamorphoses for Bouazza. Bouazza throughout his writing borrows freely from the classics. He seemingly effortlessly weaves mythological references through his texts and his 21

Ovid, The Metamorphoses, trans. Arthur Golding, in Latin Literature: An Anthology, ed. Michael Grant, Handsworth: Penguin Classics, 1979, 257. 22 Kathleen Anne Perry, Another Reality: Metamorphosis and the Imagination in the Poetry of Ovid, Petrarch, and Ronsard, Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 1990, 17. 23 “A tender rind / Enwraps her beauteous bosom; from her head shoots up / Her hair in leaves: in branches spread her arms; / Her feet but now so swift cleave to the earth / With roots immoveable; her face at last / The summit forms; her bloom the same remains” (Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidius Naso in English Blank Verse, trans. J.J. Howard, London: 1807, Book I, 28, Hathi Trust Digital Library: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064183161 (accessed 5 April 2011)).

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use of shape-shifting is part of this same mellifluous movement. There are three elements in particular I would like to bring to the fore. Firstly, for Bouazza metamorphosis does not only derive its significance from a change of the material, but also from the physical manifestation of what he refers to as zielsmigratie (“migration of the soul”). Metamorphosis combines the incompatible, it assumes a fundamental flexibility and changeability as a point of departure: boundaries are fluid, all matter carries the potential for change, self is always in motion. He takes Ovid’s claim that “we are not bodies only, but winged spirits”24 and runs with it: particularly humans and birds regularly exchange places but equally boys turn into trees and women into paper.25 Secondly, typically Ovidian moments of transformation are triggered by extremes of emotion and the psychology of sexual desire, precisely the states of psychological extremis that is of specific interest to Bouazza. Thirdly, the very nature of metamorphosis presupposes what Jonathan Bate calls “a refusal to submit to the decorum of genre”, and Bouazza is prepared to take risks not just with genre but also with language.26 Metamorphosis is for Bouazza a means to communicate his ideas about art. Metamorphosis exceeds the expression of psychological intensity or sexual force: it expresses the exhilaration and liberation found in the act of writing itself, in the power of the imagination which can create a universe removed from the expectations and reality of everyday life and the individual author. In Bouazza shapeshifting can express the sheer pleasure of making up stories, with his ambition to both enjoy and employ language to express his boundless imaginative movements. Increasingly however, Bouazza’s literary writing appears to include, amidst the celebration and glorification of personal freedom found in the art and the artist’s imagination, a warning against taking easy refuge in this inner world. Progressively louder sounds an appeal to see, to name and to attack social wrongs of 24

Ovid. The Metamorphoses. Trans. Arthur Golding, Book XV, l. 454. There are many examples of shape-shifting in Bouazza’s work before Spotvogel. For instance in the closing lines of Bouazza’s highly acclaimed novel Paravion, the protagonist Baba Baloek is told in the closing lines of the novel: “Sir you are an owl” (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2003, 220) and the mother figure Mama Mamoerra makes and turns into paper (see Louwerse, Homeless Entertainment, 201-208). 26 Jonathan Bate, Shakespeare and Ovid, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, 3. 25

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the real world, particularly in relation to the position of women within Islam. Mocking bird Spotvogel was published in 2009 after a period of relative silence around Bouazza. His success and fame as a novelist had been firmly established with the publication of his highly acclaimed novel Paravion (2003). Yet during the following six years Bouazza would focus on translations of Arabic poetry, reviews, essays and commentaries. A new novel was eagerly anticipated. The timing of Spotvogel was significant: the novella appeared shortly after the publication of Bouazza’s highly personal account of his battle with alcohol dependency in a Dutch newspaper, De Volkskrant, in January 2009. When the novel turned out to relate the emergence from a period of “painful lethargy” of a protagonist of Moroccan descent referred to as Hafid, critics soon made the biographical connection. For instance during a television appearance on a prominent television talk show shortly after the publication of Spotvogel, the discussion focused entirely on Bouazza’s own alcohol dependency even though the author emphatically stated that his circumstances were unrelated to the fictional events of the novel. He significantly states, “I wanted to keep it as literary as possible”.27 Spotvogel shows many of the familiar ingredients of Bouazza’s literary writing: the mellifluous language, the many classical references, the magical realist elements, the evocation of the senses, the celebration of the physical, the religious satire, and the biting depiction of the position of women in Islam. In Spotvogel Bouazza plays his characteristic game of deception by activating a biographical reading followed by the quashing of that desire: he casually inserts a reference to the first-person-narrator as Hafid in a quasi-religious interjection, “Hafid seeks salvation”.28 Yet

27 “Ik wilde het zo literair mogelijk houden”, stated on Pauw en Witteman 10 March 2009. During the interview, there is no special focus on Bouazza’s Moroccan heritage. However, that he remains an outsider author is handsomely confirmed when one of the presenters deals Bouazza a backhanded compliment: “You write more beautiful Dutch than many Dutch people.” Bouazza responds slightly glumly, “but it is also my Dutch”. 28 Hafid Bouazza, Spotvogel, Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2009, 65: “Hafid zoekt verlossing.” In his debut collection of short stories, De voeten van Abdullah, Bouazza

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most significantly for our discussion here is that in Spotvogel, similar to his earlier short novel Momo, Bouazza employs characterization as a narrative tool through continually thwarting the desire for consistency, logic and integrity. In Spotvogel, Bouazza moulds and shapes his characters in the same way he manipulates language, matching meaning with form. In Spotvogel, the narrator-protagonist’s mother, who has diagnosed her son’s depression as homesickness, sends him on a healing mission to Morocco. He does not resist her wish and he first spends a period in Oujda in his mother’s house before travelling north where he will stay at the house of his deceased father. The warmth of the North-African sun, the general pace of life, the overwhelming kindness and generosity of the people, and above all the sensual experiences of taste and smell, aid the healing process and put the protagonist in a position to dispel the numbness of his brain by telling his story: the tragic love story of Noral and Marfisa. Up to this point, the narrative has been the retrospective account of a narrator, presumably an older version of the protagonist. We have now caught up in time and the narratorprotagonist emphasizes again that he is ready to tell the tale, the tale: “And now I will write the story: that is where all my roaming and misery have led me.”29 Noral and Marfisa’s story is a tale of cruelty and repression: their blossoming love is thwarted by Marfisa’s authoritarian father who maims his own daughter to prevent the love match. Marfisa dies from her injuries and Noral disappears. Spotvogel finishes with a direct address to the reader in which the narrator reveals that the tragic tale of the ill-fated lovers was not set in Morocco as the reader too readily assumed, but in the Netherlands. The suppression of women is taking place not on far away shores but in “our own” Gorthoem, or rather Gorkum, a seemingly mundane town on a big river. Although the reason for the father’s objection to the match is not explicitly stated, the fact that his cruelty is associated with an ever-increasing number of mosques arising in the town suggests a link between religious fanaticism, violence, and repression. In the closing lines of Spotvogel, similarly uses Hafid to refer to the narrator on two separate occasions. These appear to be little more than playful digs at the readers’ readiness to make biographical links. 29 Ibid., 77: “En nu zal ik het verhaal opschrijven: dat is waarheen alle omzwervingen en ellende mij hebben geleid.”

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the protagonist-narrator appears to have found a new balance now that his story is told: in a gesture of independence, he is no longer waiting to be fed, but states: “Now I can finally cook for myself for the first time. Now I have something to do.”30 Even though there is a clear plot, Spotvogel is a far cry from a unified story or a single message. The novel is a richly enigmatic narrative constructed from a multitude of allusions. The reader is lured into sharing in a mythical world where the senses rule and the desire for comprehension is suspended. Yet Spotvogel contains many short, poignant references to the world outside, the social reality, most notably in the twist to the story of Noral and Marfisa. Bouazza’s hallmark celebration of the imagination – the inner world as a limitless boundary-free world that offers a real alternative away from the restrictions of reality including the expectation of his readers – does not survive in the face of the suppression and cruelty Marfisa suffers. The narrator is careful to drive home that her story is not just another distant fairytale. There is a tangible urge, a real necessity: this story demands telling. Finding words The sentence “I think I have found the words” runs like a literary mantra through Spotvogel, and a significant change in wording underlines the need for words not just to conjure up the imaginary, but also to speak the necessary. On three occasions the narrator verbalizes Spotvogel’s central concern: finding words and more specifically, finding meaningful words “that harbour thoughts and not just the wind that has blown through my mind for so long”.31 There are two more variations, significantly both at the start of a story: first as an opening to the personal story of the narrator’s depression and secondly before the start of the tragedy of Noral and Marfisa. The ambivalence between these variations is of interest here: “En ik denk de woorden te hebben gevonden, een toevlucht voor mijn eens verwarde geest” (“And I think I have found the words, a refuge for my once confused soul”); “En ik denk de woorden te hebben gevonden, omdat er geen 30

Ibid., 119: “Nu kan ik eindelijk voor het eerst voor mezelf koken. Nu heb ik iets om handen.” 31 Ibid., see 5, 7, and 74: “[woorden] waaronder gedachten schuilen en niet enkel de wind die mijn geest zo lang heeft doorblazen.”

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schuilplaats meer is voor mijn geest” (“And I think I have found the words, because there is no refuge anymore for my soul”).32 Whereas in the first instance, words offer refuge, a safe hiding place for a confused soul, in the second instance hiding is not an option: these words are necessary because there is no escape. The second variant reveals both necessity and gritty determination: there are no hiding places left. It challenges the suggestion that words can offer refuge, that a flight into an alternative realm, an escape into the imaginary, is a possibility. Significantly, the denial of escape is connected with the Noral/Marfisa story and the suggestion is that real cruelty requires real action: “there is a clear and painful realization that cannot be deluded by the masquerades of the imagination.”33 The rejection of the “masquerades of the imagination”, however, does not imply a turn towards realism. In a typically Bouazzian movement, he chooses to express the limitations of the flight into the imaginary through what at first appears the most flexible of all mind games: metamorphosis. Before looking at Bouazza’s metamorphic movements, there are two views from the rich field of metamorphic study I would like to introduce briefly. In her study Another Reality: Metamorphosis and the Imagination in the Poetry of Ovid, Petrarch, and Ronsard, Kathleen Perry regards metamorphosis above all as a way of escaping reality, as a flight from the material into the imaginary world. She links this specifically to Ovid: according to Perry, Ovid “is primarily concerned with the value of poetry and myth as creative alternatives to harsh reality, rather than as a means of understanding that reality”.34 Marina Warner’s Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds, in which she studies shape-shifting in art and literature from Ovid to Phillip Pullman, takes a more engaged view: she departs from the assumption that the occurrence of metamorphosis results from the human condition, from actual historical changes, or better, human encounters. For example, she argues that uncanny and Gothic writing showed a peak of intensity and popularity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which coincided with the ethnography of new territories, “the metamorphoses inflicted by occupation, slavery, and 32

Ibid., 6 and 75. Ibid., 118: “er is een helder en pijnlijk besef dat zich niet begoochelen laat door de maskeraden van de verbeelding.” 34 Perry, Another Reality, 18. 33

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the getting of wealth abroad incited a literature of metamorphic identity as the apt vehicle of the changing times”.35 But it is more than a trope to deal with a changing world around us; Warner adds a psychological slant when she argues that metamorphic art is above all “a way of telling the self”, a means by which to express the complexity of human identity which cannot be explained in a single explanatory gesture or form.36 As such, I suggest that in Spotvogel, Bouazza uses metamorphosis as a celebration of the imaginary, as an artistic expression of a joyful literary game, as an integral part of the narcotic effect of language. However, Bouazza also employs a darker form of metamorphosis as “a way of telling the self”, as an expression of psychological turmoil, as an engagement with the complexity of the human mind. For both movements, Bouazza employs his favourite metamorphic form: birds. Not the rather washed-out metaphor for migration with which we have grown so familiar, but the image stretched in all possible directions and beyond: migration becomes metamorphosis. Doves and ravens Spotvogel, as the title suggests, is a novel brimming with birds. The opening lines clearly set the scene: Het is tijd voor mijn geest om te ruien. Er valt veel te zeggen voor het schrijven met een veerpen, hoe geaffecteerd ook: met dode veren brengt men woorden tot leven. Hopelijk zichzelf ook.37

The narrator expresses a desire for a new beginning and evokes the familiar image of a bird shedding its feathers to signify the start of a new phase in his life. This new start is linked with writing: through the writing of his story, the narrator will regain life after a period of feeling dead as a result of a traumatic experience. However, by taking this opening more literally, by reading it as metamorphosis rather than as metaphor, many seemingly enigmatic episodes attract new 35

Marina Warner, Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of Telling the Self, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 25. 36 Ibid., 211. 37 Bouazza, Spotvogel, 5: “It is time for my spirit to moult. There is a lot to be said for writing with a quill, however conceited: with dead feathers one can bring words to life. Hopefully oneself too.”

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signification. If a spirit is to moult, let us assume that the spirit has taken on the outward appearance of a bird. The narrator’s soul has migrated into a bird, reducing the human original to little more than an empty shell, a walking dead, a zombie.38 The narrator-protagonist frequently refers to his dulled, near death, state: “the only thing I wanted was to feel my heart again in my bosom. A soul in my body” and, “I think that even an embryo had more life and more thoughts than I had at that time”.39 The metamorphic form is used above all to express the desolation of the narrator, his state of psychological emptiness, presumably after the disappearance of a loved one: Helaas voor deze schaduw die eens dacht een man te zijn, zo glorieus was hij in zijn schoonheid en in je voorkeur; die jij uitverkoos totdat hij in zijn hart niets minder dan een vogel gods dacht te zijn. Hij kon niet weten dat de ene god twee vogels verlangde en de ander een: beide dezelfde vogel: twee verschillende goden. Twee raven voor een eenogige en één raaf voor een lichtgevende.40

This rather oblique paragraph conjures up a fall from grace that has left the lonely lover with memories of how the attention of his lovedone deluded him into thinking he was “a bird of the gods”. He 38

Bouazza does not use the word “zombie”, but that is clearly the state in which the narrator finds himself. He even includes the idea that the zombie suffers from immortality when he says, “het was onsterfelijkheid alleen die mij verteerde” (“it was immortality only that consumed me”) (ibid., 12). For a fascinating account of the rise and development of the figure of the zombie, see Warner, Fantastic Metamorphoses, 119-32. 39 Bouazza, Spotvogel, 18 and 11: “het enige wat ik wilde was mijn hart weer in mijn boezem voelen. En een ziel in mijn lichaam”, “Ik denk dat zelfs een embryo meer leven bevat en zelfs meer gedachten kent dan ik toen had.” The link to the title is also significant here. The novel mentions the story of “the king or demon whose soul dwelt in a bird”, and who could not die until his body and soul would be reunited (18). It was the storyteller Hippolais who related the tale of the unfortunate “king or demon”; significantly, Hippolais is also the Greek name for mockingbird or spotvogel, the bird whose fame is mainly based on the ability to imitate the song of other species. 40 Ibid., 13: “Sadly for this shadow that once thought himself a man; he was so glorious in his beauty and in your favour; whom you had chosen until he thought himself at heart to be nothing less than a bird of the gods. He could not know that one god desired two birds and the other one: both the same bird: two different gods. Two ravens for a one-eyed and one raven for a light-giver.”

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mistakenly presumes that he was like a dove associated with the goddess of love, Venus (or Aphrodite). Yet it turns out that birds of the gods come in different guises and that he finds himself “at heart” not a lovebird but a raven. In Greek mythology the raven is the messenger of Apollo or Helios, “light-giver”, and the raven is also associated with Wodan, “the one-eyed”, the most important of all Northern European gods who had two talking ravens as companions and informants.41 Gods come in different shapes and forms and so do their birds. The bitterness increases when yet another religious association is attributed to the ravens: Mijn ziel moet toen aan raven toevertrouwd zijn, die lijken eten en afscheid krassen en verlatenheid en nimmermeer roepen als zijn eenmaal een vrouwtje gedekt hebben – terwijl zij zwart werden vanwege hun ontrouw. En bij dit alles lijken zij te bidden tijdens hun krochen maar zij zijn dan ook grafvogels, de zwarte monniken.42

Here, the narrator laments that his soul was entrusted to ravens, unattractive scavengers that not only eat dead bodies, but also appear to enjoy preaching fire and brimstone. In Spotvogel, ravens emerge as the personification of religious hypocrisy: they preach restriction of sexual freedom, yet their own outward appearance bears witness to their own deprivation – their faithlessness has caused them to turn black. The earlier mythological references have made way for black monks, the embodiment of any repressive religion in the real world. The narrator’s metamorphosis, reflecting his fall from a state of blissful love to painful emptiness, clearly foreshadows the tale of Marfisa and Noral. Yet it also reflects and supports the central concern of Spotvogel: exposing the story of religious repression. Through the mythological we are led to the actual, to real wounds that cannot be 41 Wodan interestingly views the world through a little window in the sky, which conjures up the image of the young author and his “pillar of light” through the attic window. 42 Ibid., 18f.: “My soul must have been entrusted to ravens, which feed on carrion and caw of parting and forlornness and cry nevermore when they have managed to possess a female – while they turned black because of their unfaithfulness. And on top of that they seem to pray while coughing, but after all they are cemetery birds, the black monks.”

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covered up or cured by the beauty of language or the flight into the imaginary.43 The narrator is left no choice: in a paradoxical movement he steps into the story to address the reader directly and reveal the painful truth: the suppression of women is not taking place in far away Morocco, but right under our noses: Dit gebeurde in het land waar ik geboren werd en waar ik het liefst vertoefde, en dat land, mijn enige en lieve lezeres, is niet Marokko maar een land in het Noorden, waar, zoals Plinius zei, de bomen onder de rivieren groeien – een Moerasland, een Houtland, een Neder Land.44

The shift from dove to raven, from lovebird to messenger/informant is complete, and the message is delivered. Through the metamorphic trope, the telling of the self (the narrator’s state of psychological desolation) and the telling of the story (in which the narrator is not only the messenger who passively records but also actively performs the role of messenger when he addresses the reader directly) are achieved. Arcadia Metamorphosis is further woven into the texture of Spotvogel. The narrator declares to have found words after a period of convalescence in the garden of Makhometo and Andala. Here, he establishes that his body and soul are no longer split, and he attributes his recovery to a native of Arcadia, the god Pan: “it is as if the god Pan has united my body with the earthly soul that flows inside me.”45 Ironically, his healing is completed in this Arcadian environment of flowers, birds, and, above all, constant metamorphoses. 43

In the revised edition of De voeten van Abdullah of 2002, Bouazza makes a similar statement in his afterword: “de schoonheid van de taal is niet bij machte de gemiste kansen en opgelopen wonden werkelijk te bedekken of te genezen” (“the beauty of language cannot truly shroud or cure the missed opportunities and the wounds incurred”) (Hafid Bouazza, Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2002, 157). 44 Bouazza, Spotvogel, 118: “This took place in the land where I was born and where I preferred to sojourn, and that country, my only and dearest reader, is not Morocco but a country in the north, where, in Plinius words, the trees grow under the rivers – a Swamp country, a Woodland, a Nether Land.” 45 Ibid., 75: “Het is alsof de god Pan mijn lichaam heeft verbonden met de aardse ziel die in mij stroomt.”

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The pastoral genre is the literary mode par excellence for articulating the desire to flee from the complexities of everyday life into an unproblematic world of harmony and beauty. Its core mode is about escape, about yearning and longing for a pure life away from strictures, strife, war, and greed. Makhometo and Andala, who take care of the protagonist during his stay at his father’s house, live in a version of Arcadia, a beautiful garden where flowers talk, birds sing, and where there is bliss through wine and water pipe. Makhometo and Andala are exceptionally hospitable and caring but above all they are out of the ordinary: they are fluid, interchangeable beings, barely two discrete persons at all. They seamlessly blend into each other, they metamorphose into birds, and they fuse with their idyllic environment; in short, in this utopian world transgression and metamorphosis are the norm. When the protagonist observes two birds in their garden, he recognizes them as his hosts even though he admits that he has never seem them as birds before, only in their human form. The transformations are entirely natural as are the characters’ abilities to read the narrator’s mind and thus answer questions before being asked. In the following quotation the narrator never asks the question “is that Andala?” when looking at a bird, yet he receives confirmation: ‘Moet je deze zien.’ Ik stond op met mijn schaduw en hij wees twee vogels aan: ‘Goed kijken, daar!’ Dat was weer een moment van zelfvergetelheid – ik weet dat mijn mond zich opende in verbazing. De Diadeem Roodstaart en de Zwartkruintsjagra – ze kwamen mij bekend voor, al had ik ze als vogels nooit eerder gezien. ‘Ja,’ zei hij. ‘Dat klopt.’ En daar verscheen Andala weer en ik wist waar ik ze eerder had gezien.46

46 Ibid., 72: “‘Have a look at his one.’ I rose with my shadow and he pointed out two birds: ‘Have a good look, over there!’ That was yet another moment of selfforgetfulness – I know that my mouth opened itself in surprise. The Moussiers Redstart and the Black-crowned Tchagra – they looked familiar to me although I had never seen them as birds before. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right.’ And there was Andala again and I knew where I had seen her before.”

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In their blissful world, Makhometo and Andala constitute an ideal complement to the misery of Noral and Marfisa. The formers’ story of harmony and happiness contrasts sharply with the cruelty of the latter. Yet Makhometo and Andala’s pre-lapsarian paradise is not celebrated as a viable alternative. It is a mirage, a soothing place for the narrator’s soul – and equally for the reader who is lulled into a suspension of disbelief by the seductive, sensuous prose – but ultimately it is no more than a necessary tool to put the narrator in the position to tell the really significant tale: “And now I shall write down the story: that is where all my wandering and misery have led me.”47 The escape into the utopian, the imaginary and the solace it offers, is crucial but temporary. It serves to create the circumstances under which the story can be told. Significantly, Makhometo and Andala disappear as soon as the narrator is committed to writing the story of Noral and Marfisa. Their role as facilitators is over. Their metamorphic state has shown the promise of freedom, of flight, of a rejection of the notion of clear boundaries, and of transgression as both natural and fruitful. The escape into the imaginary is healing and sweet, but ultimately it cannot last. Wings have to become hands, feathers must become writing tools. In Spotvogel, Bouazza offers the reader a view on the world through his window. This view is determined by the “pillar of light”, the discovery of art as a demanding, irresistible force, inextricably woven into the fabric of his writing. Bouazza’s view is a real view on the real world. What we see is not a coherent vision easily explained or summarized in a single description: the novel itself remains the most precise way of expressing Bouazza’s engagement with reality through freedom and artistic play. Bouazza employs language, mythology, and metamorphosis not as a straightforward alternative to reality, as a way of escape, but to reflect strategically on that reality in a literary way. For Bouazza there is no other way. Spotvogel does convey a political message: it is an appeal to resist the forces that fetter the desire to take off, to fly in order to view the world in a highly individual, artistic way. The belief in alternative realities, away from the restrictions of the real or the conventional remain at the core of Bouazza’s work. 47

Ibid., 77: “En nu zal ik het verhaal opschrijven: dat is waarheen alle omzwervingen en ellende mij hebben geleid.”

ABOUT THE (NON-)EXISTENCE OF “MIGRANT LITERATURE” IN THE NETHERLANDS: OR, WHY MUSTAFA STITOU IS A DUTCH AUTHOR YVES T’SJOEN

Two voices on “multiculti”: Ilija Trojanow and Paul Scheffer In the novel Der Weltensammler (The Collector of Worlds, 2009), and more explicitly in an essay published in De Standaard der Letteren (the literary supplement of the Flemish newspaper De Standaard), the German-Bulgarian author Ilija Trojanow rejects the opposition between “the Self” and “the Other”, which is considered rigid.1 He asks crucial questions about the “us and them” attitude that often afflicts current discussions about multiculturalism. In his discussion of cultural diversity, he refuses to see “the Other” as a clearly delimited category, an antipode of “the Self”. “The Other” is not the alter ego of those who are alien, and who are part of another cultural tradition. Trojanow writes: … driven by fusion, the individual will gradually realize that the Other is no enemy, no stranger, no alternative, and sometimes no Other even. On the contrary, the Other is no more than a mirror of the various faces of, and opinions about, human existence, and the various definitions of what it means to ‘belong’ somewhere. The river of multicultural society has many sources.2

1

This article presents a more differentiated rewriting of a paper presented at a congress on multiculturalism and diversity in Budapest (2009), and of a Dutchlanguage essay from my book Aansporingen: Essays en reflecties (Leuven and The Hague: Acco, 2010, 193-207). 2 Ilija Trojanow, “De vergeten vruchten van migratie”, De Standaard der Letteren, 25 September 2009.

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Building on Trojanow’s water metaphor, we could say that the river does not get its identity from one single source. Rather, the river is determined by its own meandering channel. The identity of the river, which in my discussion should also be seen as a metaphor for history, is not determined by the source (its origin), but much more by the dynamic process of confluence along the way. This metaphor is productive for the issue here at stake. Not only Ilija Trojanow’s book, but also the opinions of an authoritative publicist like Paul Scheffer are important in an article about multiculturalism and literature in the Netherlands. I will discuss two publications by Scheffer later in this essay. At this stage, I will refer to the much-discussed opinion piece by this Dutch authority on the migrant problem in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. In this piece he discusses recent developments in Muslim communities in western countries. Scheffer refers to the new power relations between tolerant (free-thinking) and orthodox tendencies in Dutch Islam. He comes to the conclusion – correctly, I think – that there is now an indigenous Islam “which is trying to struggle free from the migratory experience and all the uncertainties and dogmatic answers that go with it”.3 Current debates on multicultural society indicate the diversity, if not the irreconcilability, of standpoints, and the impact of social developments on the discourse about life in a multicultural society. These are the debates about the Muslim headscarf, about the immigrant riots in Molenbeek (a Brussels suburb), or the representativeness or not of the local imam in Antwerp, about the antiIslam policies of Geert Wilders and the Partij voor de Vrijheid (“Freedom Party”) in the Netherlands.4 They are debates about the rights and obligations of Muslim and indigenous communities. This debate should be conducted openly and without dogma. What we see in practice, however, is that the debate tends to play on emotions rather than offering clear solutions. With regard to the literary field in the Netherlands (and Flanders), religion does not seem to play a major role. Nowadays, in contrast to the 1990s, in mainstream literary criticism I cannot observe any remarks by critics that should only be related to, for instance, a presumed Muslim/non-Muslim difference. 3

Paul Scheffer, “Het multiculturele drama”, NRC Handelsblad, 29 January 2000. See Karel Arnaut and Sarah Bracke et al., Een leeuw in een kooi: De grenzen van het multiculturele Vlaanderen, Antwerp and Amsterdam: Meulenhoff/Manteau, 2009.

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“Migrant literature”: a terminological problem Trojanow’s and Scheffer’s reflections bring me to the central topic of this essay: is there such a thing as “migrant literature” in Dutchspeaking regions (that is, in the Netherlands and in the Dutchspeaking community of Belgium)? Is it advisable to categorize a segment of literary production as “migrant literature”, or even as “minority literature”? On the issue of this terminological problem, I can refer to and I agree with the introductory notes by Behschnitt and Nilsson in this book. Other questions could be: can the distinction inherent in such labelling be justified by the facts? If so, is “migrant literature” different from what might be called “indigenous literature”? And if the answer to that question is no, why continue to talk about the literature produced by migrant authors, since it is literature written in Dutch? Why should the genealogy of certain authors, their ancestors or their cultural origins, be a reason to use a terminology that distinguishes them from other authors? We can take this further: should we keep using labels such as “women’s literature”, “gay literature”, or “migrant literature” because other participants in the field, like publishing houses, benefit from this in some way? I do not pretend to give an answer to these questions in this article, but I will try to give an impetus to further research. The starting point for this contribution is a pre-eminently Dutch literary phenomenon: “migrant literature” is to be found in the Netherlands, where it is (or has been) a label, or a niche, in literary criticism and in the marketing strategies of publishers. As far as I am concerned, it does not exist in reality, or at least not as a movement or a tendency among authors.5 In the Netherlands, ten or fifteen years ago, what I call – for the sake of convenience – “the phenomenon” still went by the name of “allochtone literatuur” (or “non-indigenous literature”), and this was not considered problematic. In Hugo Brems’ history of Dutchlanguage literature Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen (Always 5

Until recently, the phenomenon was completely absent from the Flemish literary scene. This changed when the Belgian author of Moroccan origin, Rachida Lamrabet received the literary debut prize from the Flemish culture minister, Bert Anciaux, at the Antwerp book fair in 2008. She was not the first immigrant author who has published in Flanders, but she has received the most attention from the media. The question of multicultural literature in Flanders is dealt with in Sarah De Mul and Thomas Ernst’s contribution to this volume.

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More Birds Begin to Nest, 2006), the last chapter deals with “aspects of literature at the turn of the millennium”.6 At the end of that chapter, Brems considers the presence of what he calls the “allochtone schrijver” (“non-indigenous author” is probably a suitable English term) in a “multicultural society”.7 I will systematically put this notion of “allochtone schrijver”/“non-indigenous author” in quotes, so as to indicate its problematic nature. I will say more about this in part three of this article. Perhaps we would do better to talk about “new Belgians” or “new Dutch”. Under the provocative title “Does Dutch literature exist?” (“Bestaat de Nederlandse literatuur?”), Brems lists a number of social and cultural movements which indicate that the “Dutch-language area [is] an open language area, where the intake of foreign literature, whether translated or not, is very important”.8 The question, inspired by a text by Odile Heynders as to whether Dutch literature still exists at all, is strongly worded, but is also couched in the necessary reticence.9 The only possible answer to that question – “Does Dutch literature exist?” – is probably affirmative: Dutch-language literature still has its own identity, just because it concerns a literary production which is written in Dutch. Apart from the language I cannot see other distinctive elements that could constitute that “own” or “new identity”. The idea that the presence of “non-indigenous authors” and the many foreign influences they entail, should cause us to deny a literature’s right to exist, says more about the questioner’s bias than about the shifts that have really taken place in our society, more specifically in its literary landscape. In the last sentence of his book, Brems rightly notes that a dubious concept like “national identity” says nothing about the existence or otherwise of Dutch-language literature.10

6

Hugo Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen: Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1945-2005, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2006, 605-84. 7 Ibid., 667. See also Liesbeth Minnaard’s discussion of the term in her contribution to this volume. 8 Ibid., 663: “het Nederlands taalgebied [is] een open taalgebied, waar de instroom van literatuur uit het buitenland, zowel oorspronkelijk als in vertaling, zeer groot is”. 9 Odile Heynders, “Ten geleide: Literaturen in het Nederlands”, Literatuur, XVI/6 (1999), 322-23. 10 Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen, 684.

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Migration in contemporary literature in the Netherlands A changing street scene leads to changes in the image and the dynamics of a literature. A society that remains free from external influences tends towards a static totalitarian social order. The claim that Dutch literature has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and that literary works by authors from other nations and cultures have contributed significantly to this, may be considered stating the obvious. It is an open door. Knowing that the number of people of foreign origin in the Netherlands has risen from less than a million in 1990 to almost two million now, one can hardly be surprised that this presence has left its mark on the country’s literature. Two million people means over ten per cent of the population of the Netherlands. About half of those are second- or third-generation immigrants. Many “migrant authors” are not even migrants, as they were born and/or raised in the Netherlands. The influence of other cultures has long been a feature of developments in Dutch literature, that is, literature in the Netherlands: the presence of literature of the Dutch East Indies and the work of authors from Suriname in the literary world in the Netherlands are but two examples. Multiculturalism in the literary field, from a historical or even a nationalistic perspective, due to a colonial past, has played only a minor role in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium, as the contribution by De Mul in this volume makes clear. Hugo Brems in Altijd weer vogels points to the social and historical context of twentieth-century Dutch society (that is, in the Netherlands). He sees three migratory currents that have had a significant influence on Dutch literature: (1) immigration from Indonesia and later from Suriname in the period of decolonization; (2) migration from Mediterranean countries due to political and economic circumstances; and finally the most recent current – (3) political refugees seeking asylum.11 In a society where a growing percentage of the population consists of people of foreign origin, literary production is bound to be influenced by this phenomenon. Both “indigenous” and “nonindigenous” authors cannot remain indifferent to the political and societal debate going on in the Netherlands (and also in Flanders), with the sans papiers and asylum seekers at the top of the political agenda. In light of what I have argued above, a comparative thematic 11

Ibid., 667-70.

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study of this social phenomenon in the work of Dutch authors, and in that of the “migrant authors”, might lead to disappointing results. The question is if authors approach this problem differently according to their different cultural traditions and backgrounds. Do second- and third-generation immigrants view this issue as essential for their own identity and for their position in Dutch society? In most cases, I would doubt it. The exchange of ideas about the problems and ideals of multiculturalism as a societal phenomenon is not only the prerogative of sociologists and political scientists. In 2000, Paul Scheffer wrote a much-discussed essay with the rather provocative title “The Multicultural Drama”. I referred to it at the beginning of this article. It deals with multiculturalism in the urbanized Netherlands – the conurbation of the Randstad – and observes the failure of cultural diversity.12 Scheffer later completed his essay with his book Het land van aankomst13 (The Country of Arrival, 2007), which was equally controversial and defended an open-society model. The successes and failures of interculturality are often dealt with in the novels of “indigenous” Dutch authors, but also in those of “nonindigenous” authors, who are, and should be, equal participants on the literary playing field of the Netherlands. The barrier between both categories eludes me, especially when I am confronted with the literary texts themselves. On the success or the failure of multicultural society (the failure is described in recent political statements by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy), novels by Dutch writers such as Joost Zwagerman (De buitenvrouw, 1994), Robert Vuijsje (Alleen maar nette mensen, 2008), and Naima el Bezaz could be mentioned. In El Bezaz’s muchdiscussed novel Vinexvrouwen (2010), for instance, the author presents a mocking caricature of Dutch-indigenous, mainly racist, women living in boring suburbs of cities and more generally presenting a critical (or better: a superficial, even simplistic) view on provincialism in the Netherlands. For an extensive view of multicultural literature in the Netherlands, I can refer to the article “Multiculturality in the Dutch Literary Field” by Liesbeth Minnaard in this volume. In addition to her point of view, 12 13

Wim van Rooy, De malaise van de multiculturaliteit, Leuven: Acco, 2008. Paul Scheffer, Het land van aankomst, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2007.

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one can repeat and elaborate on the same rather existential question I presented before (as did Hugo Brems in his history of post-war Dutch literature): does Dutch literature exist? I think that such a question about the identity of the literary field is hardly productive, not least because there is a lack of clarity about the interpretation of what might constitute “Dutchness”. What I have observed in the Dutch-language area is a literature with its own particular dynamic. There are in fact two literary systems (one in the Netherlands and one in Flanders), as well as numerous subsystems with specific characteristics, but also continuous interaction between them. The “non-indigenous” authors contribute significantly to the dynamics of our contemporary literature, just like their colleagues who were born and raised in the Netherlands. We can observe in the geographical area of Flanders and – for the case of this article – the Netherlands the presence of writers from many countries of origin. Most of them are second- and even thirdgeneration immigrants who, without a doubt, provide an added value to the development of Dutch-language literature. But can we call these authors “non-indigenous”? So far in this article, I have problematized the term “non-indigenous” author: what is a “non-indigenous” author, and in what sense is he or she different from an “indigenous” author? Such generalizing categorizations, without any clear point of reference, are useless in the study of literature. This is especially so because the author who is given such a label is often neither “nonindigenous”, nor completely “indigenous”, that is, native. “Ethnic” authors or “migrant” authors are often used as synonyms for “nonindigenous” authors, but these terms, too, are given diverging and often changing connotations, so that they give rise to continuous misunderstandings. Hugo Brems shows that he is somewhat receptive to this terminological issue, which continually distorts literary discussions. In his final chapter, he describes “non-indigenous” authors (“allochtone schrijvers”) as writers who were either born abroad, or who are children of immigrants (second- or thirdgeneration migrants, who, as we said earlier, are no longer migrants). Such a description is therefore not quite satisfactory, but it does reflect how the literary historian wishes to maintain a distinction between Dutch writers, and those “with a cultural background, with roots that

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are different from those of native Dutch authors”.14 From the point of view of literary studies this categorization, too, is not at all relevant. I have emphasized that nationality or a clearly defined identity cannot be used as distinctive categories, especially where the literary production of a particular language area is concerned. Such an attitude, from which I want to distance myself, is an example of essentialist thinking, when generalizing terms like “the Jew” or the “non-indigenous” author are used in order to indicate an identity.15 It is incompatible to claim that Dutch literature is open to the world, and then to classify the authors of that literature according to nineteenthcentury essentialist criteria. So allow me to discuss authors with various cultural backgrounds and particular histories, about authors who use the Dutch language, regardless of whether these backgrounds or particular histories should be situated at home or abroad. Labels will always harm the specific individuality that typifies every authorship. We can observe that the differences between the literary personalities of Dutch authors such as Jeroen Brouwers (born in Batavia) and Cees Nooteboom (born in The Hague, but cosmopolitan in mind and writing) can be much greater than those between Cees Nooteboom and Hafid Bouazza (who has Moroccan roots). But these differences have much more to do with language and style than with skin colour or culture. Since the mid-1990s, writers have been active in Dutch literature in a different manner than the Indonesian, Surinamese, and Antillean writers of the 1950s or 1970s.16 Today’s writers of Moroccan and Turkish origin are giving literature in the Netherlands a different outlook. Second-generation writers, whose parents or even grandparents migrated to the Netherlands for economic reasons, obviously have no memories of a personal past in Morocco or Turkey. Since their birth, they may have felt a bond of solidarity with their parents’ cultural (and religious) traditions on Dutch soil. This often causes a tense situation. There is the respect for the traditions instilled 14 Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen, 668: “met een culturele achtergrond, met roots die verschillen van die van de inheemse Nederlandse bevolking”. 15 A similar critique of essentialist thinking is formulated by Behschnitt and Nilsson in the introductory chapter and by Nilsson in his overview of Swedish multicultural literature (in the part “Critique of the construction of immigrant literature”). 16 Compare with Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen.

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by their parents. At the same time they have grown up in a western context, surrounded by phenomena which are typical of a social environment in which the cultural tradition of the parents or grandparents is, if not disputed, at least under discussion. These writers have grown up in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, or The Hague, and they have developed their social networks there and in several respects they face similar problems and desires as the “indigenous” authors. At the same time, these writers lead an intercultural existence. By this, I mean the family, whose rituals and religion are respected, often remains traditional. In contrast, the social context they are active in is western. In most cases, they have been integrated in public life for a long time. The sometimes painful identity issue – the field of tension between two cultures – was the initial theme of the first publications by migrant authors, like the Surinamese writers Anton de Kom (who wrote on the slave trade in Suriname installed by the Dutch) and Albert Helman. The literary production of second-generation writers, however, shows that they do not hold on to these themes, let alone view them as their private domain. As I see it, the Maghreb-origin authors Abdelkader Benali, Naima El Bezaz, Hans Sahar, Hafid Bouazza, and Mustafa Stitou all belong to the class of fully integrated Dutch writers. However, the first novels written by, for instance, Mustafa Stitou and Abdelkader Benali still have “multiculti” themes. This consideration applies to a much smaller extent to writers who are political refugees, such as Kader Abdolah and Rodaan al Galidi. Typically, they are highly educated people and young intellectuals who came to the Netherlands without any colonial past linking their home to the Netherlands. They fled the dictatorships in Iran and Iraq, respectively, in a quest of freedom and democracy. It goes without saying that this position also produced a totally different type of literature. The presence of these writers could make the subject matter of a separate study. The idea of “migrant literature” is much more disparate than is commonly accepted. Case: Mustafa Stitou and the fight against a label Further on in this exploratory essay I would like to briefly elaborate on a specific case, that of Mustafa Stitou.17 In the margin of this case, 17

I have presented the most notable findings of my exploration of his case in Aansporingen (201-205), so I will now confine myself to a summary of my views.

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I will be raising new questions as to the way in which “nonindigenous” or “migrant” literature is generally depicted in Dutch literature studies, and as to how a one-sided focus on identity eventually blurs our view on the literary and linguistic aspects of a work. The first writers of Moroccan origin began to emerge in the Netherlands around 1995. The association for Arabic art and literature, El Hizjra, has been organizing an annual literary contest for Moroccan and Arab Dutch people since the early 1990s. El Hizjra has a dual aim of being both literary and emancipatory. The initial idea was to endow fellow citizens of the same origin with a conscience and, especially, to present a more positive picture of the community than is commonly the case in media. Later, after the awards and debuts, the commercial publishers discovered a gap in the market. Publishing houses such as Vassallucci, In de Knipscheer, and De Geus seized this opportunity to promote their publisher’s lists under the denomination of the new and economically lucrative vogue word “multiculturality”. They created a niche for this “non-indigenous” or “exotic” literature.18 Today, all major publishing houses in the Netherlands have all sorts of writers on their lists, a motley mix of indigenous and foreign origins. If contemporary literature in the Netherlands has its own dynamic, this can be partly attributed to the melting pot which our multicultural society has become. Initially, the “non-indigenous” writers were showcased as exotic butterflies, since commercially speaking they were a profitable product for any publishing house. We are now beyond this stage. It is obvious these writers participate in today’s social and literary debate, to the same extent that, like the mayor of Rotterdam, they participate in debates on political, social, and cultural policies. Gone are the days when critics automatically greeted these authors with an easy benevolence, turning them into a mere phenomenon in Dutch literature. Readers, and consequently literary critics, have gradually come to view them as writers in possession of their own individual idiom and style. The group label (or even the concept) “non-indigenous writer” has disappeared, relegated to the 18

For an elaboration on the El Hizjra prize and for an overview of the institutions (awards, publishers, etc.) in the Dutch literary field, see the contribution by Nijborg and Laroui in this book.

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category of politically incorrect labels or of irrelevant epithets. What is more, the fact that these writers were prepared to put up with this creation of niches and these clever marketing moves was more a matter of literary strategy than an issue of identity. Each group in a literary field needs such a provocative or unifying label. Think of the way the neo-realists (1960s, early 1970s) and later the neo-romantics (1970s) profiled themselves in the Dutch literary landscape and applied all kinds of mechanisms (even the introduction of the rather problematic notion of “a generation”) in order to make themselves visible and grab attention. It is a matter of shouting out loud that one exists. That is all there is to it. As soon as a writer realizes that he or she exists and that others acknowledge his or her existence, the urge to united action quickly withers. “Non-indigenous” writers, “foreign-origin” writers, “secondgeneration migrants”, even “migrant” writers or “minority” authors: in the end, they are all Dutch writers, actors in the Dutch literary field.19 As Hafid Bouazza argued in the Book Week essay Een beer in bontjas (A Bear in a Fur Coat): “Language is his identity, style his passport.”20 Origin is hardly relevant when it comes to characterizing authorship. However, let us return to Stitou’s case. Stitou’s debut appeared with Arena publishers, but shortly afterwards the poet moved to Vassallucci, together with the publishers-editors. Mustafa Stitou was awarded the El Hizjra Prize in 1992 for his work as a writer “of nonwestern origin in the Netherlands”. A subsequent winner of the prize was Abdelkader Benali. Since then, other writers have also received “indigenous” prizes, such as the Gouden Uil and the Libris Literatuurprijs. But, what does it matter if a literary prize can be called “indigenous”’, if we do not realize what the term really means and to what extent the ever-changing or presumed meaning evolves together with society? Stitou won the 2004 VSB poetry prize for his Varkensroze ansichten (Pig-pink Postcards, 2003). What has happened to the representation of Stitou’s authorship in the meantime? Not very much, as a matter of fact. In interviews, Stitou emphasizes that he has never experienced his alleged intermediate position, caught 19 In all editions of the Lexicon van literaire termen rather problematic terms like “non-indigenous” or “migrant” writer do not appear. 20 Hafid Bouazza, Een beer in bontjas, Amsterdam: CPNB, 2001.

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between two cultures, as an insurmountable or existential problem, let alone as a culture shock. Brems rightly argues that this author has, if anything, been amazed by the cultural identity issue.21 Stitou’s position in the Dutch literary landscape, which is not felt to be alien, different, or problematic, is comparable to that of the average Dutch author. In and through the Dutch language, this writer shapes his own literary personality, using a playful and ironic style as his passport. It seems to me that the cultural identity issue has not influenced Stitou’s work. It would be relevant, however, to investigate the role of his bilingualism with regard to the specific use he makes of the Dutch language in his literary work. In interviews, Stitou does not refer to the way this bilingualism has shaped his literary idiom in Dutch. At the beginning of Stitou’s literary authorship the use of surprising neologisms and queer word combinations is sometimes explained from a multicultural perspective. A writer with a “strange” Arabic name was considered to add colourful rhythms and a kind of exotic word-music to the conventional, traditionally more or less ironical discourse in modern Dutch poetry. I do not deny the importance of rhythms and different kinds of linguistic experiments in Stitou’s literary texts; however, I do not consider the way Stitou adds something idiosyncratic to the common discourse in Dutch literature from a multicultural point of view. This writer enriches the language of which he makes use. From my point of view, it is not because he is from a different ethnic background from Dutch writers born in the Netherlands. Probably speaking another language with his Moroccan family in private situations is not the only, not even a main reason why the aesthetic idiom of Stitou can be called very particular. It is specific only because he tries to define his own particular artistic discourse, just like all the other writers in the Dutch literary field, with regard to the language he hears in everyday life in the Netherlands. Stitou’s specific literary language has nothing to do with the fact this poet is called Mustafa (with all non-indigenous connotations) or his birthplace must be situated in Morocco. It seems to me he plays, like many other poets, on a skilful way with the linguistic, stylistic, and other rhythmic possibilities Dutch language offers. In his debut, Mijn vormen (My Shapes), which was awarded a prize by El Hizjra as well, the subject mainly observes himself and his 21

Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen, 676.

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everyday urban environment. The migrant issue, let alone an exotic setting or a multicultural theme, is not a prominent part of his literary agenda.22 References to a Moroccan background that we see in Mijn vormen, are not at all present in Mijn gedichten (My Poems, 1998) or in his most recent volume so far, Varkensroze ansichten (2003). This poet explores language and thus creates his own passport in Dutch literature. Stitou was also nominated for the Flemish Hugues C. Pernathprijs 2005, when Ramsey Nasr – at that time the Antwerp city poet, the successor to Tom Lanoye – was awarded this literary prize for his book Onhandig bloesemend. Stitou wants to be viewed and read as a writer first, not as the literary scion of a lineage of immigrants in the Netherlands. “Non-indigenous” writers are often claimed, usually in generalizing terms, to apply “other forms of language use” or “other ways of storytelling”, to have a “different view on literature and the world”.23 In short, they are considered to be different, deviant. They do not conform to the norm. They are no more different than all the others, I would say, since the notion of difference in itself marginalizes people and hence points to an exceptional position. It has been a long time since these Dutch writers were operating in splendid isolation in the Dutch literary field. Stitou and the particularity of an authorship In concluding this analysis, I would like to look more specifically at the migration theme (in so far as this can be said to exist) in the poetry of Mustafa Stitou. In my analysis of Stitou’s literary character, I will focus only on textual characteristics, on stylistic and language-specific aspects of his work. Stitou’s country of origin plays no role in my attempt to position him as a Dutch poet. In analyses of the work of Hugo Claus and Harry Mulisch I feel equally less inclined to address the “indigenous” or family background of these Flemish, respectively Dutch, writers. One can discuss the qualities of the literary production 22 Tom van Deel mentioned, “a few months after [Mustafa’s] birth … the family Stitou in Tetouan in Morocco moved to Lelystad in Flevoland [the Netherlands]” (“‘Geiten, geiten komen jullie?’: ‘Varkensroze ansichten’ van Mustafa Stitou”, Ons Erfdeel, XLVII/4 (2004), 605-607). Could we consider a small Moroccan boy, who grew up in Holland, a migrant writer? 23 Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen, 683.

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by an author, without considering passports, identity, or religious and genealogical records. Stitou’s third poetry collection Varkensroze ansichten placed the poet in the spotlight of Dutch literary criticism. This collection was received not only with a symphony of eulogies, but was also crowned with the – in literary terms – prominent award of the VSB Book Prize. Moreover, Stitou as poet was regarded from the very outset as a notable phenomenon in the Dutch literary landscape. Critics regarded his poetry as a new voice in present-day Dutch literature. The key comments made in critical reviews are that it is poetry with a different rhythm, with surprising imagery, accessible, and even anecdotal. Although I do not agree with these comments as an indication of the specific character of Stitou’s poetic language, it is remarkable that in the reception of his work, the poet’s foreign ancestry is no longer a matter for consideration. Tom van Deel believes he knows that also “Stitou in the final event does not concern himself with his ethnic background, because he feels he is an ordinary Dutch poet, rooted in Dutch-language poetry”.24 Correspondingly, I do not read the collections of Stitou as an expression of a clichéd, and therefore reductionist, dichotomy between “ethnic” and “native”, between “own” and “foreign”, or between Dutch and Moroccan. My reading endeavours to unmask this supposed opposition as an (scarcely applicable or relevant) illusory contradiction. Stitou’s debut, Mijn vormen, was welcomed in poetry reviews surprisingly favourably (or even benevolently). His apparently unpretentious poems are characterized by a subtle play with style and language registers, with philosophical reflections and minute (now and then humorously) formulated observations of town tableaux. Stitou’s first collection is still built on the ambivalence of two cultures, experienced as existential. The slowly changing personal attitude to life, the poet’s gradual distancing of himself from his country of birth, and finally the clash between religion and religiosity in Stitou’s imagery, between Muhammed and McDonalds, are the themes given shape in direct and suggestive verse forms. In the second collection, Mijn gedichten, a remarkable shift of focus occurred from the cultural tradition of the (grand)parents and the cultural gap, experienced as confusing between the country of birth, the childhood 24

Van Deel, “‘Geiten, geiten komen jullie?’”, 605.

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world, and the attainment of adulthood, to a rather more ironic, at times sarcastic vision of the position of the subject in a trusted/familiar (or even as his own) Dutch habitat. This shift is later continued in Varkensroze ansichten. The poem “Zomaarcafé” (“Random Café”) found earlier in the debut collection, is given an alternative reading in “Zomaarcafé 98” in the second section “Troubadour” (in Mijn gedichten). In the first version, in Mijn gedichten, Stitou confronted Moroccan Islamic culture with the “godless conviviality” of Dutch summertime café culture. The “I” experiences belief in his “country of origin” as oppressive, as expressed with pregnancy in a metaphorical father figure: “Het van vroombloed kleinerwordend / zitbeeld in mijn vader” (“The image within my father, shrivelled by his pious blood”). He may well have been portraying himself in “de jonge Marokkaan / en zijn anderstalige gedachten” (“the young Moroccan / and his other-language thoughts”).25 The cultural ambivalence the unmistakable ethnic lyrical subject clearly played tricks with, and that is portrayed so poignantly in “Zomaarcafé” was at that time read exclusively as ethnic by the reading public. It may be that the poet was later shocked by the sharpness of the contrast construed. The crowning glory of “Zomaarcafé 98” in Mijn gedichten is Stitou’s correction of the “zitbeeld” (“image”) shrivelled under the excessive piousness of the father: Ik bedoel: het zitbeeld staat in Beliën’s Geschiedenis van de oude wereld, Zitbeeld van Ebich-II (ca 2400). Ook stamland.26

This same poem also contains several lines easily read as philosophical. Stitou in his poems shows himself to be astonished, also slightly bewildered, by the reality that surrounds him. It is how the vision of this reality, expressed as “het zijnde” (“being”), that is thematized in his poetry.

25

Mustafa Stitou, Mijn gedichten, Amsterdam: Vassallucci, 1998, 14. Ibid., 17: “I mean: the image is in / Beliën’s History of the ancient world, / Image of Ebich-II (ca 2400). His tribal country.” 26

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Nonetheless, the poems cannot be read simply as poetic anecdotes or lyrical comments on (extra-linguistic) events and observations. The lucid treatment of the possibilities and conventions of language is too vividly present for this. The reality described is after all purely fictional. Stitou’s poems are – by definition – linguistic constructions. Although his style is not emphatic, he demonstrates more selfawareness than in the poetic forms of his debut, where his use of language was more everyday. This conventional language, as medium for a dominant cultural discourse, is represented in the form of all kinds of newspaper notices, prayer and condolence prints, the language of advertising slogans, and shopping lists. The sentences he plucks from everyday language are ready-made and are part of the subtle play with language registers so manifestly present in Mijn vormen. The shopping list, presented as a poem, reminds one of the neo-Dadaist techniques employed by Dutch writers J. Bernlief and K. Schippers as early as the 60s. Or in the same period of the radical neorealistic (or avant-garde) experiments of Vaandrager, Verhagen, and Armando in Gard Sivik/De nieuwe stijl. It may be that Stitou’s literary genealogy is to be found more in the Randstad than in Casablanca.27 A start has yet to be made on the construction of that literary genealogy and it may lead to some surprising cross-connections. How different can such a writer then be considered? In linguistic constructions, in which the phonetic often takes precedence above the semantic (as expressed in the countless inner rhymes and assonances), Stitou endeavours in language constructions to thematize his problematic relationship with language (rather than something as vague and intangible as “identity”). The poet is time and again confronted with the limitations, the inadequacy of language, and possibly also the limitations of being in the world. Although, in my view, it is not the confrontation of the personally experienced cultural gap between the self and the other. It is not the recordings of the surrounding reality, but the language on which he as a poet is forced to rely that is the subject of Mustafa Stitou’s fixation in Mijn gedichten. That the “About nature” section, which is only mentioned in the contents, does not occur in the collection, and that this edition at the end contains two blank pages (as a symbol of nothingness?) can in this sense be interpreted as a programmatic lacuna/mistake. 27

Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen, 676.

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This central theme is expressed in a variety of stylistic constructions. Besides the lyrical poems (with, for example, elliptical sentence structures, summaries and repetitions, paradoxes, hyperboles, absurdities), the collection also contains fragments of texts, associations of images and sounds, in which descriptive and suggestive phrases, recordings and dialogues alternate. The lack of syntactical links is a symbol of the lack of cohesion between the things, the delusion of greater synthetic entities. It is not by chance that the “l” in the word “gehee” (“all”, “for all”) in “Zomaarcafé” is missing, or that a poem begins with the italicized text “het samendoen banden smeedde bestaat niet (of nauwelijks) meer” (“Togetherness never [or no longer] forges bonds”). This explicitly philosophical line is subsequently supplemented with a meaningful footnote: Een eigen toon is een totalitair trekje Rijm is geweld (daarom vinden hersens het fijn) Maar begrijpt u me niet verkeerd: ik spreek niet (of nauwelijks) tegen wie beweert Wie ongewapend het oerbos inloopt komt niet terug met een bundel gedichten.28

Cool and empathetic recordings (“a trace of Oetker”), clichéd images and unexpected metaphors, and abstract and concrete imagery are equally forms of expression for the ambivalence also evidenced in this collection. Only, the emphasis is more expressly on the language and the place of the “I” in a linguistic universe. Varkensroze ansichten is an eclectically composed collection in which a self-willed poet has gradually found his own idiom. Stitou does not represent the voice of an ethnic writer, seeking between two cultures, but of a Dutchlanguage writer who colours poetry with his structures, his poems/thoughts, and impure rose-tinted views. In my reading of Stitou’s poetic status, I have therefore also emphasized the semantic, structural, and phonetic aspects of the poetic work, rather than the issues that reduce poetic status to a purely cultural or ethnic issue. For 28

Stitou, Mijn gedichten, 19: “Your own tone is a totalitarian trait / Rhyme is violence (which is why the brain likes it) / But don’t misunderstand me: I do not gain say (or hardly ever), that he / who goes unarmed into the woods will return with a collection of poems.”

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me, at least, ancestry and skin colour are irrelevant categories in this analysis of poetry. Conclusion: an aviary of varied species and voices Dutch literature is a house with many rooms. Or, in ornithological terms Brems uses in his history of literature Altijd weer vogels: it is an aviary in which every bird is known by its note. It goes without saying that the exotic species have notes different to those of the indigenous birds. But how different are these notes? All writers produce their different notes. Genders, ethnic origins, hair colours, or sexual preferences are from my perspective non-relevant issues dealing with the literature produced by these writers. In any way, what is “exotic” in a multicultural environment? Describing the style of the authors who have been prominent in the Netherlands since the mid-1990s, Brems argues in the final paragraph of Altijd weer vogels: heel wat boeken van allochtone schrijvers [vallen] op door een grote mate van lichtheid, speelsheid en vrijheid. Werkelijkheid, droom, fantasie en magische elementen lopen er geregeld door elkaar heen. Het wonderlijke is even gewoon en vanzelfsprekend als dagelijkse en banale. Die grensdoorbreking komt ook naarvoren in de manier waarop vaak verhalen in elkaar overlopen, elkaar doorkruisen, afgebroken en weer opgenomen worden.29

He adds that these authors succeed in enriching Dutch as a literary language through their frank approach to language. The same literary profile could in fact be used for describing indigenous bird species, so much so that the exclusive value of Brems’ characterization in fact still eludes me at the end of this essay. In my conclusion I can repeat that Brems’ exoticizing of “allochtoon” writers is not productive if we consider these authors as part of the literary field in the Netherlands. If the major criterion is the choice for Dutch as their writing material,

29 Brems, Altijd weer vogels die nesten beginnen, 684: “many books by alien writers [are characterized by] a high degree of lightness, playfulness, and freedom. Reality, dream, fantasy, and magical elements are often interwoven. The magical is as common and natural as the daily and the commonplace. This demolition of borders is also expressed in the way stories often flow into each other, intersect with each other, are broken off and are resumed.”

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the ethnic origin of the writer himself or herself is of less (or even no) importance. Dutch literature is a nesting place for a wide variety of birds which each make their own private nests. The title of Brems’ history of literature refers not only to a late twelfth-century phrase in Old Dutch, or to the verses by the modern Dutch poets Gerrit Kouwenaar and Remco Campert. It also refers to a passage in one of Kader Abdolah’s novels (Een tuin in de zee: Mirza, 2001), mentioned by Brems at the end of his literary history. These reminiscences alone make a subdivision based on “cages” hardly meaningful to me, since it clips the wings of everything that is per definition polyphonic and dynamic. Whether the words come from a monk, a poet or a resistance fighter from Iran, Mustafa, Hugo, and Ramsey are all part of Dutch literature. Allow me to conclude by quoting two verses which recur as a mantra in one of Stitou’s poems: “Destroy the palaces!”, and especially: “the Alien does not exist.”30

30

Mustafa Stitou, Varkensroze ansichten, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2004, 68, 71.

MULTICULTURALISM AND MULTILINGUALISM IN CONTEMPORARY PROSE IN FLANDERS: CHIKA UNIGWE, KOEN PEETERS, AND BENNO BARNARD SARAH DE MUL AND THOMAS ERNST

In a recent piece in De Morgen, “Land zonder cultuur” (“Country without culture”, 2011), the acclaimed and prize-winning author Erwin Mortier sharply opposes both the separatist tendencies of the leading right-wing Flemish-nationalist political party Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA) and the “Flemish movement” in general. He particularly takes issue with the detrimental consequences of the structure of Belgium’s current political organization in which cultural policy is legislated and executed on the Francophone and Flemish community levels rather than on the federal level. Mortier argues that the increasing federalization of Belgium’s cultural sector has “created an incredible cultural emptiness on the national level”, and crushed the international potential of cultural institutions in Brussels such as the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, the opera La Monnaie/De Munt, the International House of Literature Passa Porta, or the theatre house 1 KVS. Instead, Mortier subscribes to the notion of a “Belgian culture” that transcends the language and communitarian tensions between the Flemish and Francophone regions. In addition, he proposes to promote a cultural policy based on a national Belgian level and a new imagination of Brussels “as a capital community where the three national languages of Belgium [Dutch, French, and German] and English are officially accepted”.2 Mortier contrasts his vision to a 1

Erwin Mortier, “Land zonder cultuur”, in De Morgen, 5 March 2011: “een onvergeeflijke culturele leegte gecreëerd op het nationale niveau.” This and all further translations are ours, unless stated otherwise. 2 Ibid.: “als een hoofdstedelijke gemeenschap waar de drie landstalen en het Engels officieel erkend zijn.”

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“Flemish movement” which he sees as historically supported by the need to defend Flemish language rights. Mortier questions the movement’s monolingualism as sprouting from provincial and Catholic-conservative ideological foundations, and, as such, poses an impediment to “Protestantism or free-thinking spirits” and “a broader cultural and intellectual heritage”.3 For the purpose of this essay, we will not discuss the legitimacy of Mortier’s claims nor the reactions his piece triggered in intellectual circles. However, seen in the context of the current political crisis in Belgium, which became most visible following the federal elections of 13 June 2010, Mortier’s text is illustrative for the myriad ways in which writers and intellectuals in Flanders have recently expressed pro-Belgian sentiments in the public domain, opposing hegemonic nationalist and neoliberal discourses dominant in Flemish politics. These latter discourses are generally characterized by a demand for increasing political and economic autonomy of the Flemish region.4 As Sarah De Mul discusses in her essay on the intercultural literary policy in Flanders in this volume, an important part of the ideological framework underpinning the Flemish institutional literary field is the idea that there is such a thing as a homogenous Flemish culture, a notion that is distinguished from Dutch culture, and at the same time is made compatible with the integration of non-ethnic Flemishness. The idea of a homogenous Flemish culture is reinforced as an effect of a specific construction of a “Flemish literature”, as De Mul writes, “through references to Dutch Literature in discussions about the lack and desirability of migration literature in Flanders”. The latter point suggests that a Flemish multicultural literature derives part of its meaning from the focus on the non-Flemish ethnic background of 3

Ibid.: “het protestantisme of de vrijdenkerij” and “een weidser cultureel en intellectueel erfgoed”. 4 While in Wallonia the Social-Democratic party won the elections with a notable margin, the result in Flanders showed the overwhelming electoral success of nationalist right wing and conservative parties. In the wake of a complex combination of long-lasting communitarian tensions between the regions, and the urgency to decide on a number of difficult political issues and ongoing discussions about the functioning of the federal state structure itself, Belgium broke the world record in 2011 for a nation-state without government for the longest period ever (this record was previously held by Iraq with a period of 249 days). In Flanders, the winning parties are the N-VA (27.8%), CD&V (17.3%), Vlaams Belang (12.3%), and Lijst Dedecker (3.7%); in Wallonia, the Parti Socialiste (37.6%) is the winner.

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authors such as Inan Abbas, Naima Albdiounni, Jamila Amadou, Saida Boudjaine, Mimount Bousakla, Fikry El Azzouzi, or Ali Wauters, as mentioned by De Mul. The political context of federal Belgium and its concomitant communitarian and language tensions as briefly outlined above, however, suggests that a Flemish multicultural literature could also be analysed from the perspective of language deployed in texts and the concomitant concepts of identity linked to these linguistic strategies. In this essay, we examine a number of aspects of multicultural and multilingual literatures of Flanders. More specifically, we read a number of literary texts as counter-discourses subverting the dominant discourses of Flemish monoculture, monolingualism, and whiteness. Our analysis includes three levels. First, we justify and elaborate why we choose to analyse the specific literary texts under investigation. This is a necessary step, particularly since our critical endeavour involves an engagement with categories and binaries such as Flemish versus migrant authors and monolingual versus multilingual literature. Secondly, we analyse a number of linguistic and narrative strategies in On Black Sisters’ Street (2009) by Chika Unigwe, which we consider a transnational Flemish literary text that resists every attempt to link it to monolingual discourses or demarcate a strict national identity. Further, Unigwe’s text uncovers the Flemish normality of whiteness negatively, in the sense that its black protagonists are shown to become highly conscious of the meaning of blackness when they are in Flanders. Finally, we analyse strategies of multilingualism in the writings by Koen Peeters, who is conventionally considered a “Flemish author”, and by Benno Barnard, who could be categorized as a “Belgian” or “Dutch”, rather than a “Flemish writer”. Highlighting a number of multilingual and multicultural aspects, we hope to show that the literary texts under investigation are part of a wider discourse that counteracts the dominant imagination of a self-contained, monolingual Flemish culture which is scrutinized in many ways at the moment. Belgium and Flanders: discourses of mono- and multilinguality Although literary texts are arguably a privileged medium to reflect on the relation between language, multilinguality, and identity, multilingual literature has so far largely escaped the object of

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academic research. This observation can be connected with the monolingual and national literary canons central to older nation-based, philological literary paradigms that are still dominant, perhaps not so much in the discipline of comparative literature, but certainly in the literary criticism of the literatures of the Low Countries and Scandinavia. Recently, however, it has been suggested that one of the pivotal future directions of literary studies is the turn towards the historic and comparative analysis of multilingual literature and the expansion of academic scholarship that focuses on multilingual literatures from comparative and linguistic perspectives.5 One of the starting points for such analyses could be the combination of forms of languages in literary texts. In multilingual literature, we find five different forms of languages. Firstly, standard languages like Dutch, English, French, or German; secondly, varieties such as dialects, ethnolects, slang, or technical terminologies; thirdly, words of foreign origin as fragmentary representations of “the other”;6 fourthly, hybrid or creole languages that could be called “multispeak”, implying “speaking in different languages”,7 for example “Kanak Sprak”, “Franglais”, or “Swenglish”;8 finally, the artificial literary languages of the avant-garde, for example the sound poetry of the Dadaists. Discourses promoting multilingual cultures on a European level, as well as theoretical and literary reflections on multilinguality just described, seem directly opposed to the discourses of national language and culture. The latter have seized hegemonic hold in the contemporary political landscape of Flanders and are also reinforced, amongst others, by media discourses directly and indirectly fed by 5

See, for example, Monika Schmitz-Emans, “Literatur und Vielsprachigkeit: Aspekte, Themen, Voraussetzungen”, in Literatur und Vielsprachigkeit, ed. Monika SchmitzEmans, Heidelberg: Synchron, 2004, 11-15. 6 See Thomas Y. Levin, “Nationalitäten der Sprache – Adornos Fremdwörter: Multikulturalismus und bzw. als Übersetzung”, in Multikulturalität: Tendenzen, Probleme, Perspektiven, eds Michael Kessler and Jürgen Wertheimer, Tübingen: Stauffenberg, 1995, 77-90. 7 Jürgen Erfurt, “De même I hope j’te bother pas: Transkulturalität und Hybridität in der Frankophonie”, in Transkulturalität und Hybridität: L’espace francophone als Grenzerfahrung des Sprechens und Schreibens, ed. Jürgen Erfurt, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004, 16: “Multisprech” and “Sprechen in verschiedenen Sprachen”. 8 Sprachgrenzen überspringen: Sprachliche Hybridität und polykulturelles Selbstverständnis, eds Volker Hinnenkamp and Katharina Meng, Tübingen: Narr, 2005.

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notions of a homogenous Flemish identity. As the communities composing the Belgian state structure are primarily demarcated along linguistic lines, language plays a crucial role in the current tensions that have historically accumulated in complicated ways. The policies and practices of “unmixing” cultures and languages are visible in Brussels also. Although the sociologist Dirk Jacobs observes a “mix character of Brussels” and predicts in Brussels that “Dutch and French schools [will] offer very gradually forms of multilingual education”, current political developments indicate that the opposite may well come true.9 Recently, the Social Democrat and Flemish Minister of Education Pascal Smet abolished the FOYERprogramme of the Flemish community, which had supported multilingual education in Brussels since 1981, a decision that shocked a number of internationally renowned academics and experts who publically expressed their disagreement.10 It is perhaps not a coincidence that the reactions of these international opponents were collected by and published on the website of the independent cultural and media watch organization KifKif, an organization that launches initiatives and organizes events for the stimulation of a democratic, multicultural society. The latter organization is situated within a much broader trend in Flanders in which intellectuals and artists of various philosophical and ideological positions contest the imagination of a homogenous Flemish community with Dutch as the sole and central language. Scrutinizing the dominant essentialist views of Flemish identity in popular culture and heritage since approximately the last two decades, Karel Arnaut et al. observe:

9

Dirk Jacobs, “‘Brussels, do you speak-a my language?’ Enige toekomstscenario’s gewikt en gewogen”, in Waar België voor staat: Een toekomstvisie, eds Geert Buelens, Jan Goossens, and David Van Reybrouck, Antwerp and Amsterdam: Meulenhoff-Manteau, 2007, 232 and 237: “gemengde karakter van Brussel”, “Nederlandstalige en Franstalige scholen heel geleidelijk aan taalgemengd onderwijs aanbieden.” 10 See the quotations from the academics Nikolas Coupland (Cardiff), Nancy H. Hornberger (Pennsylvania), Jens-Normann Jorgensen (Copenhagen), James Collings (Albany), Adrian Blackledge, Angela Creese (Birmingham), Jef Van der Aa, Sirpa Leppänen (Jyväskylä), Ana Celia Zentella (San Diego), and Stephan May (Auckland) at kifkif.be (accessed 28 May 2011).

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Sarah De Mul and Thomas Ernst Strips zoals Jommeke en televisieprogramma’s zoals die van Piet Huysentruyt die het Algemeen Nederlands amper machtig is, worden nu gevaloriseerd als ‘oer-Vlaams’, ‘typisch Vlaams’ of ‘uit de Vlaamse klei getrokken’. Tussenvormen van het Nederlands maken 11 opgang, Vlaamse dialecten worden geherwaardeerd.

This quotation suggests paradoxically enough that a veritable multiplicity of dialect languages and regional identities in Flanders form the background for the construction of homogenous and monolingual “Flemishness”. In addition, critics of Flemish nationalist discourses have underscored that the perspective of cultural identity does not help us to deal with the multilingual, globalized, fluid and transitory forms of life, economy and communication presently characterizing the Western world. In the introduction to the volume of essays Waar België voor staat (a doubling phrase that suggests “What ‘Belgium’ stands for” as well as “What Belgium has to overcome”), editors Geert Buelens, Jan Goossens, and David Van Reybrouck argue that “the future of Flanders and Belgium [will be] multilingual, intercultural and opposed to any form of identitarian or nationalistic form of thought – be it Flemish, Francophone, Belgian or of Brussels”.12 In a similar vein, author and translator Geert Van Istendael underscores that the construction of a pure Flemish identity is by definition impossible: You can be both a Belgian and a Fleming. Or a Belgian and a Walloon. Without the slightest effort. Or Belgian and a Brusselaar 11 Karel Arnaut, Sarah Bracke, Bambi Ceuppens, Sarah De Mul, Nadia Fadil, and Meryem Kanmaz, “Het gekooide Vlaanderen: Twintig jaar gemist multicultureel debat”, in Een leeuw in een kooi: De grenzen van het multiculturele Vlaanderen, eds Karel Arnaut, Sarah Bracke, Bambi Ceuppens, Sarah De Mul, Nadia Fadil, and Meryem Kanmaz, Antwerp and Amsterdam: Meulenhoff-Manteau, 2009, 17: “Comicstrips such as Jommeke or television programmes by people like Piet Huysentruyt who hardly masters standard Dutch are now classified as ‘primal Flemish’, ‘typical Flemish’ or ‘grown from Flemish mud’. In-between forms of Dutch are increasingly used and Flemish dialects are revalorized.” 12 Geert Buelens, Jan Goossens, and David Van Reybrouck, Introduction, in Waar België voor staat: Een toekomstvisie, 22: “de toekomst van Vlaanderen en België … meertalig, intercultureel en haaks staand op gelijk welk eng identitair of nationalistisch denken, of het nu Vlaams, Waals, Brussels of Belgisch is.”

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and a Berber-speaker and on occasion a French-speaker. Or Belgian and Walloon and a German-speaker and quadrilingual too. Lots of combinations are possible, conceivable, and real.13

In light of the increasing public visibility of these counter-discourses promoting multilingual, transnational, and anti-identitarian aspects of Flemish and Belgian culture, the multilingual strategies deployed in a series of Flemish prose texts imagine a world beyond Flemish monolingual nationalism, and, as such, gain social and political relevance. Below, we discuss a number of selected texts to illustrate this point. Before proceeding, however, it is worthwhile to sidestep for a moment and problematize the main categories underlying our analysis. Contesting Flemishness in multicultural and multilingual prose In the Introduction to this volume, Wolfgang Behschnitt and Magnus Nilsson start off with the broad definition of multicultural literature as “literatures written, read and discussed in the context of migration, multiculturalism and multilingualism”.14 Certainly, Behschnitt and Nilsson differentiate this definition afterwards. In order to work with this category in an analytical way, they argue, the political and institutional preconditions, language discourses, and the specific national critical and theoretical discourse(s) that form the conditions of possibility for “multicultural literature” to emerge in a given context need to be analysed. Connections between cultures, languages, authors, and texts can indeed be ambivalent and contradictory. Behschnitt and Nilsson similarly argue in the Introduction that “multilingualism in literary texts does not evolve naturally from its author’s linguistic background. Nor does it mirror authentically the languages or varieties used in a given society.”15 We would like to broaden this argument: if one assumes that a migrant author subject automatically writes intercultural texts, and that non-migrant authors take up a hegemonic position, this view on authorship and literary texts would just reproduce a dichotomic ethnic discourse and 13

Geert Van Istendael, “Dear Patrick Roegiers”, Passa Porta Magazine: Frontières, Grenzen, Borders (2011), 35. 14 See this volume, 1. 15 Ibid., 15.

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underestimate the resignifying potential of literary texts. To put it differently, the category of “migrant authors” may relate to authors who write monolingual texts addressing monocultural subjects, while “Flemish authors” may produce multilingual texts dealing with multicultural issues in various ways, a point which in itself is suggestive of the limitations of these conventional categories. This point invites us to problematize conventional dichotomic categories like “migrant author” vs. “ethnic Flemish author”, or “autochthoon writing” vs. “allochthoon writing”, deployed to describe multicultural literature as well as the writings that include multicultural themes and multilingual forms in explicit ways. We take into account the critical reception of texts, the institutional and social subject positions available to authors, as well as the performance of authorship, particularly in the way in which these are connected to processes of migration, intercultural experiences, or culturally hybrid ways of living. Problems like these underlay the selection of authors and texts discussed in what follows. First, we analyse On Black Sisters’ Street (2009), written by the Nigeria-born Chika Unigwe who now lives and works in Flanders as a “literary bilingual” writing in Dutch and English. Conventionally, Unigwe is categorized as a writer of ethnic minority descent and a female politically active writer in ways similar to Rachida Lamrabet or Yamila Idrissi, whose texts will, however, not be analysed here.16 Following the analysis of On Black Sisters’ Street, a text which is often read in terms of Unigwe’s languages, ethnicity, migratory trajectories, and political activities, we focus on two texts written by male authors who are normally not framed by means of socio-historical references to migrancy but whose writing, as we will demonstrate, are inherently multicultural and multilingual. Koen Peeters, usually perceived as a “Flemish” writer, addresses multicultural themes and weaves numerous European languages into 16 Rachida Lamrabet and Yamila Idrissi are as well representing the type of awardwinning and politically active Flemish female writers with the background of an intercontinental migration experience. Both were born in Morocco, immigrated early to Flanders, and both of them are juridical and political activists – with Lamrabet working on human and equal rights and Idrissi working as a politician for the Flemish Social-democrats (see Jamila Idrissi and Tessa Vermeiren, Kif-Kif: Aan de ander kent men zichzelf, Roeselare: Roularta, 1995; Rachida Lamrabet, Vrouwland, Antwerp and Amsterdam: Meulenhoff-Manteau, 2007).

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his Grote Europese Roman (Major European Novel, 2007). Besides Peeters, we could have analysed the work by other ethnic Flemish authors such as Tom Naegels or Tom Lanoye, who also deal with issues of multiculturality while inserting fragments of non-Dutch languages in their texts.17 Finally, we examine the writing of Benno Barnard, who in a sense presents an uneasy category between “ethnic Flemish” and “non-ethnic Flemish authors”. Barnard was raised in the Netherlands and speaks Dutch as a first language. He has been living in Belgium since 1976 and actively participates in public debates in Flanders. Nevertheless, he remains typified as a non-Flemish or nonBelgian author in media and the literary field in Flanders. While biographically Barnard may not fit into the category of “ethnic Flemish author”, his literature is situated within the philosophical, aesthetic, and political discourses in which also the writings of most “ethnic Flemish authors” are embedded. Becoming black in Belgium: Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street In February 2010, Chika Unigwe wrote the satirical column “Zwart worden in zeven lessen” (“Becoming Black in Seven Lessons”), which is also available as “How to be an African” in English in a thoroughly revised form.18 In this column, Unigwe describes with great irony what she has learned about blackness since living in Europe:

17 Los (2005), a novel written by the Flemish journalist Tom Naegels, tells amongst other things the story of the protagonist’s relationship with a Pakistani asylum-seeker and about the clashes in the Antwerp migrant quarter Borgerhout. Meanwhile, Los has become a bestseller in Flanders and has been filmed. Tom Lanoye’s novel Het derde huwelijk (2006) is set up around the fake marriage between a Flemish man and an African woman. His short prose pieces Johannesburg, le bain (een reisverhaal), Kaap de goede hoop, and Gezond verstand in’t buitenland (all 2004) report in Dutch and partially in English from South Africa, where Lanoye lives half of the year. 18 Chika Unigwe, “Zwart worden in zeven lessen”, Mo* magazine, 11 February 2010: http://www.mo.be/opinie/zwart-worden-zeven-lessen. See also Chika Unigwe, “How to be an African”, African Online, IX: http://www.african-writing.com/nine/ chikaunigwe.htm; and Binyavanga Wainaina, “How to Write About Africa: Instructions for Beginners”, Granta, XCII (“The View from Africa”, Winter 2005).

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Sarah De Mul and Thomas Ernst Ik leer nu dat zwart zijn betekent dat ik word aanzien als een liefdadigheidsproject. Dat ik dankbaar zou moeten zijn voor de kans 19 die ik heb gekregen om in Europa te mogen zijn.

These lessons further include dressing in an authentically African way, always being prepared for police control, and being able to dance. Unigwe’s “Becoming Black in Seven Lessons” reminds us of the social construction of blackness. Coming to Europe means entering a social imaginary where subjects are already imagined, constructed, and treated as “black” by hegemonic discourses. As argued in the essay by De Mul in this volume, in Flanders a discourse on ethnoracial and cultural identity has emerged, which significantly shapes notions of blackness in the contemporary African diaspora in which Unigwe as an author is situated. One of the consequences is that Unigwe is primarily assigned the position of an ethnic minority author in the Flemish literary field. If Unigwe is treated as an ethnic minority writer by hegemonic discourses, it is worthwhile to ask how she negotiates and relates to this position. We will address this question by reading Unigwe’s second novel, which was published as Fata Morgana (2007) in Dutch and On Black Sisters’ Street in English. More specifically, analysing how the four protagonists in the book are defined by exotic definitions of black womanhood they simultaneously act out and subvert, we explore how parallels can be drawn with Unigwe’s stance vis-à-vis the authorial position assigned to her. Unigwe, as we will argue, performs the role of ethnic minority writer in Flanders, while she can also be seen transcending and destabilizing this position by means of what Declercq and Boyden in this volume name “literary bilingualism”. On Black Sisters’ Street renders an account of four African sex workers who desperately seek to escape their miserable living conditions and respond to the lure of a better life in Europe. On arrival in Antwerp, the women’s idealized image of Europe soon proves to be a mirage, or a “fata morgana” in the terms of the title of the Dutch edition. The title of the English translation is a literal translation of the 19 Unigwe, “Zwart worden in zeven lessen”: “I now learn that being black means that I am perceived as a charity project. That I must be grateful for the opportunity granted to me to be in Europe.”

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street name “Zwartezusterstraat” in the city of Antwerp, which refers to a renowned Roman Catholic religious order. In this particular street, the female African protagonists share their lives and live together under the watchful eyes of their madam and her menacing assistant Segun. The title, however, does not just refer to the geographical location of Antwerp, for its Catholic local history and perhaps also the role women play in this history are concerned. But it also alludes to the notion of black diasporic womanhood and the possibilities of black sisterhood or community formation in Europe, which in many ways is thematized in the book. With their fake passports withheld by Madam and living under her close surveillance, the four women are almost literally imprisoned in the house in the red-light district but also objectified in the position of black sex workers satisfying white men’s sexual desires: “As for liking black women, Oga Dele had told her [Efe] that they were in great demand by white men, tired of their women and wanting a bit of colour and spice.”20 Primarily, the women are indeed socially constructed through exotic, sexualized codes of black womanhood. As illegal workers in Belgium, the women hide their true names and family histories from each other. When Sisi tries to escape the world of prostitution and is murdered, Ama, Efe and Joyce work through her death by revealing their painful histories to each other. The novel indeed centres on the life narratives of the women, who are usually observed from the outside, as sexual spectacles sitting under red spotlights behind the windows of the Schipperskwartier of Antwerp. The novel’s concern, however, is not to offer to the white middle-class reader the sensationalist testimonies and authentic experiences of those women experiencing globalization from below. Nor does the novel want to deplore the miserable fate of black sex workers who are victims in Dele’s women’s trafficking network as well as in the male-dominated Western sex industry. Rendering her account of the journey to Belgium, Ama says: I made this choice, at least, I was given a choice. I came here with my eyes wide open.21

20 21

Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters’ Street, London: Jonathan Cape, 2009, 84. Ibid., 114.

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The four women are indeed not victims, but individuals making choices, choices that are restricted by circumstance. If they want to be successful as sex workers in Antwerp, the women have to abide by gendered and racialized norms and codes of dress and behaviour. On Black Sisters’ Street is indeed not so much an account of four African sex workers as an exploration of how they become black sex workers: “Blue bra sprinkled with glitter and a matching G-string, boots up to her thighs, she stood behind the glass, and prayed that no one would notice her.”22 The novel suggests the constructed nature of sexualized black womanhood by describing how the four women dress up and act upon the role behind the window that is expected of them. If it is true, in the terms of Eva Pendelton, that “sex work is drag in that it is a mimetic performance of highly charged feminine gender codes”, to which we may also add racial codes, then the novel portrays the four protagonists in the process of performing these highly charged codes of black femininity.23 While Judith Butler’s understanding of agency arises from social iterability and the fact that every reiteration opens the potential for change and subversion, in Unigwe’s novel, however, the disruptive potential does not reside in the women’s rewriting of the codes of black sex workers.24 Rather, it is situated in the narration of how the women act out these codes. Unigwe juxtaposes scenes of the women’s performance as black sex workers to self-reflexive fragments that explicate their doubts, uncertainty, embarrassment, or feelings of freedom, and to text portions in which the women are seen to take an emotional distance from or critically comment on their behaviour. In so doing, their work is revealed to the reader as a strategic lie. Joyce piously scrubs the make-up off her face at the request of a regular customer who calls her “Etienne’s Nubian princess”. She is ready to change the script and to change costume, as it were, whenever this is desired. Her ultimate goal is not, however, to please white men’s desire. The latter is but a means to achieve economic purposes and upward social mobility. Or in Ama’s terms: “the men she slept with 22

Ibid., 134. Eva Pendelton, “Love for Sale: Queering Heterosexuality”, in Whores and Other Feminists, ed. Jill Nagle, New York: Routledge, 1997, 183. 24 Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination”, in Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, ed. Diana Fuss, New York: Routledge, 1993, 24. 23

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were … just tools she needed to achieve her dream. And her dream was expansive enough to accommodate all of them.”25 In their daily lives also, the women’s identities, as the novel underscores, consist of a series of provisional narratives. Narrating their histories to each other – life writing being a formal way to underscore the narrative dimension of identity – the women change the story about themselves alongside the rapidly changing circumstances that have occurred to them. Sisi and Joyce have changed their names and were originally called Chrisom and Alek, the latter, as she reveals, being Sudanese, not Nigerian as she has made everyone in the house believe. Alek refers to the UN refugee camp she lived in for a while as “a collection of sad stories”.26 Upon arrival in Belgium, Sisi is determined to “shed her skin like a snake and emerge completely new”.27 Madam invents the story of an escape from Liberia that Sisi must tell about herself to the Immigration Office. Sisi agrees to be Liberian, “in the next months she would be other things. Other people. A constant yearning to escape herself would take over her life.”28 While the performance of sexualized definitions of black womanhood is central to the four women’s lives as sex workers, their family histories emphasize their identities as a series of narratives invented strategically to suit the circumstances. Formally, also, On Black Sisters’ Street can be seen to defy exotic notions of black female identity and community, notions which define the four women when they are at work in the public space in Antwerp. The chapters entitled “Zwartezusterstraat” render an account of events that occur in the present, and are geographically situated in the city of Antwerp – more precisely in the house on Zwartezusterstraat, where the four women live together. These chapters are interwoven with chapters focusing on the individual life stories of the women and bring into view their separate, idiosyncratic pasts and futures. Their individual stories follow the ongoing movement back and forth between Nigeria and Belgium. The movement between individual stories set in divergent geographies and dissimilar timeliness creates a weaving effect that rejects essentialist notions of black female 25

Unigwe, On Black Sisters’ Street, 169. Ibid., 194. 27 Ibid., 98. 28 Ibid., 121. 26

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identity, while simultaneously insisting on a commonality of experience: Their different thoughts sometimes converge and meet in the present, causing them to share the same fear. But when they think about their 29 past, they have different memories.

Additionally, the women living together in the African microcosm in their house on Zwartezusterstraat are supposed to share Nigeria as their place of origin, but they are not bound by anything except for their situation in the present in Flanders – a state of being sexualized and exoticized by hegemonic discourses. As we come to know their individual life stories, it is gradually conveyed that these women have had very different lives and would not be in contact in normal circumstances. The women share no sense of belonging or commonality based on their national or cultural background. When at a party a South-African man addresses her as his sister, Ama vehemently replies that she is not his sister, and turns his back on him. The rejection of family ties is suggestive, also for the mutual relationships among the four protagonists. Though they share the same house, their conceptions of home and family are not defined in national or cultural terms. The house, a spatial metaphor for the four black women’s community in Europe, is a place of conflict that offers no true sense of belonging, it is a cold place without a heart or a hearth; the conventional symbol of the beating heart of the home, the fireplace, is fake.30 In the course of narrating their histories to each other, however, they develop a sense of belonging in each other’s company. Through the intimacies of storytelling, the women discover their communal bond and shared predicament, which gradually ignites a sense of home. It is indeed the act of storytelling that constitutes the women’s community in the house, which in the penultimate section, is described “like a family home”, in which the kitchen is “communal” and the living room “shared’, but where they “could also retire to their rooms for some privacy”. It is a space where they could escape “the glare of the Schipperskwartier, live a life that did not include strange 29 30

Ibid., 40. Ibid., 32.

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men with sometimes stranger requests”.31 On Black Sisters’ Street suggests, then, how cultural discourses that hypereroticize the black female body determine the way in which the four African sex workers in the red-light district of the Belgian city of Antwerp become African sex workers. But it also formally and thematically resists these popular cultural perceptions in favour of rendering more diverse, subtle representations of the women and the community they share. From this perspective, On Black Sisters’ Street to a certain extent also reveals itself to be a book that theorizes its own cultural mobility. Generally put, it conveys how Chika Unigwe’s writings – their production, circulation, and reception – transcend the unilateral category of ethnic minority writing to which they are relegated in order to circulate in multiple transnational contexts. Unigwe’s Dutchlanguage debut novel De Feniks (2005) was received as “the first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin”.32 It was considered as a hopeful trendsetter for ethnic minority writing in Flanders, although it was also met with criticism. Reviewers commented on the fact that the novel was originally written in English and only afterwards translated into Dutch, a remark indicating the monolingualism, or at least the significance of Dutch as a primary language in nation-based paradigms of literature dominant in Flanders, even if the author is of African origin.33 Unigwe, who speaks Igbo and English, has Dutch as her third language. After her debut, she has continued to publish Dutch as well as English short stories, essays, and translations and editions of her writings. The inherent bilingualism, not to say multilingualism, that characterizes Unigwe’s oeuvre distinguishes her from most contemporary writers in Flanders.34 The latter more often than not write principally in Dutch – 31

Ibid., 273. Chika Unigwe, De feniks: roman, Amsterdam and Antwerp: Meulenhoff Manteau, 2005. This description also appears on the back cover of On Black Sisters’ Street. 33 For a more detailed outline of Chika Unigwe’s writings and other authors of African descent, see Elisabeth Bekers, “Chronicling Beyond Abyssinia: African Writing in Flanders, Belgium”, in Transcultural Modernities: Narrating Africa in Europe, eds Elisabeth Bekers, Sissy Helff, and Daniela Merolla, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009, 57-69. 34 In her review of On Black Sisters’ Street, Fernanda Eberstadt describes Unigwe’s language as “a rich mix of schoolmarm British and pidgin English, spiked with smatterings of Igbo and Yoruba” (“Tales from the Global Sex Trade”, New York Times, 29 April 2011). 32

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Dutch being their first language – and participate primarily in the Flemish-Dutch literary field. In the reception of De Feniks, the effects of the ethno-culturalist assumptions underlying the intercultural literature programme in Flanders, as discussed in the essay by De Mul, are visible. In his review of Unigwe’s first Dutch-language novel De Feniks, the Flemish critic Marc Cloostermans, for instance, complains that the Nigerian protagonist Oge did not have “a particularly interesting view on our country”. Cloostermans is disappointed about Unigwe’s general portrayal of Belgium in the novel, as it does not satisfy his expectations of the idea of a Nigerian-born writer: “To draw our attention to this kind of banalities, we really did not need a Nigerian writer.”35 According to this argument, Unigwe, as a Nigerian-born author is to present the Flemish audience with an interesting, new, Nigerian perspective on Belgium and if she fails to deliver this through her characters’ mouths, one of the main reasons to read her work disappears. The reception in Flanders of Unigwe’s Fata Morgana (On Black Sisters’ Street) and her third novel Nachtdanser (Night Dancer, 2011) has not been particularly good. One would only seldom see the name of Unigwe while scrolling down the list of authors appearing at the most important Flemish literary events, festivals, or on lists of nominees for important literary prizes in the last five years. It is safe to say, therefore, that Unigwe’s true acknowledgement or breakthrough has not yet happened in Flanders. From this perspective, the acclaim of On Black Sisters’ Street in the Anglophone global literature market has been remarkably positive, with reviewers of major UK- and US-based newspapers The Independent36 or The New York Times37 praising the book’s literary merits and its nomination for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. While Unigwe seems to be to an extent confronted with certain expectations and limitations attached to the position of ethnic minority 35 Mark Cloostermans, “As en confetti: Grote emoties bij Chika Unigwe”, De Standaard, 22 September 2005. 36 Bernadine Evaristo, “On Black Sisters’ Street by Chika Unigwe”, The Independent, 3 July 2009. 37 Fernanda Eberstadt, “Tales From the Global Sex Trade”, New York Times, 29 April 2011.

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writer which is available to her in Flanders, she simultaneously partakes successfully in a transnational literary system that transcends far beyond the localized Flemish literary field. To account in a detailed way for the relative dissimilarities in the reception of Unigwe’s Dutch and English version of the novel Fata Morgana/On Black Sisters’ Street, one would certainly need to look at a range of factors, such as publishing marketing strategies or the existence of an Anglophone niche-market of black diaspora writing, with its long history and relative prestige. The latter might possibly be more receptive to Unigwe’s work than Flanders; or Belgium, as a whole, somewhat provocatively described by Caryl Phillips as the country where “non-white writers … have no visible role in society”.38 It is safe to say, however, that Unigwe’s writing in Dutch enables her to participate as an ethnic minority writer in the Flemish literary circuit and that it is also a springboard to transcend this small and localized literary market perhaps more easily than any other Flemish writer, and reach a much broader, if not to say global, readership. In the process, the notion of literary bilingualism involves a complex linguistic transmutation of an English-language manuscript into the Dutch-language book Fata Morgana in 2007, turned into an Englishlanguage edition On Black Sisters’ Street in 2009. From this perspective, the circulation of Unigwe’s literary bilingual fiction illustrates Rebecca Walkowitz’s assumption that literature of migration “reflects a shift from nation-based paradigms to new ways of understanding community and belonging and to transnational models emphasizing a global space of ongoing travel and interconnection”.39 As already illustrated, it is precisely this quest for new ways of being, belonging and community which is formally and thematically central to On Black Sisters’ Street. Brussels is Europe: multilinguality and multiculturality in Koen Peeters’ Grote Europese Roman Koen Peeters was raised in Flanders and is currently living in Leuven. He has been awarded several literary prizes, such as the NRC Literatuurprijs (1994) and the Bordewijk-prijs (2001), and nominated 38

Caryl Phillips, “The Silenced Minority”, The Guardian, 15 May 2004. Rebecca L. Walkowitz, “The Location of Literature: The Transnational Book and the Migrant Writer”, Contemporary Literature, XLVII/4 (Winter 2006), 533. 39

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for the AKO-literatuurprijs (2001) and the Gouden Uil (2008). Characteristic of Peeters’ oeuvre is a formal and thematic preoccupation with the practices of categorizing and collecting, an element generally linked to postmodern literature. In his novel, Grote Europese Roman (2007), Peeters undertakes an attempt to “summarize Europe’s history in an ambitious and epic way, but seen from the minute perspective of people working or living in Brussels”.40 The subject matter of the novel reveals Peeters’ interest in European, rather than Flemish identity, although his perspective on European identity is localized and expressively “Flemish”. In the novel, Europe’s history is reflected through the imagination of Brussels – the geographical space which is often presented in media discourses as pars pro toto for the European Union and its legislative power – while at the same time Brussels functions as the prism through which European diversity is addressed. In Grote Europese Roman, a Belgian company employs the protagonist Robin. His superior, named Theo Marchand (nomen est omen), instructs him to travel across Europe and visit business partners. Robin is expected to write an extensive report about his deliberations (“a beautiful SWOT-analysis”),41 hoping that this will yield the necessary innovative inside knowledge that can rescue the company from downfall. In this set-up, Europe is imagined as a monstrous multinational construction where countries wage economic wars against each other and where encounters between firm representatives, who are in fierce competition, can only be superficial.42 In transitory non-places, such as hotels, bars, taxis, and

40

Koen Peeters, Grote Europese Roman, Antwerp and Amsterdam: MeulenhoffManteau, 2007, 4: “Groots en episch … de geschiedenis van de Europese mensheid samenvatten, maar dan vanuit het kleine perspectief van mensen die werken of leven in Brussel.” 41 Ibid., 216: “een mooie SWOT-analyse.” 42 Thereby Peeters reproduces the topos of the primacy of economy in capitalistic Europe foiling the idea of a humanistic Europe. A similar argument can be found in Tom Lanoye’s drama Fort Europa (2004) (see Thomas Ernst, “Europa zwischen Fluchtfabeln und Luftwurzeln: Der belgische Autor Tom Lanoye über Kapitalismus, Wissenschaft und Biopolitik in seinem Stück ‘Festung Europa’”, in Ökonomie im Theater der Gegenwart: Ästhetik, Produktion, Institution, eds Christine Bähr and Franziska Schößler, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009, 268-70).

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business meetings, Robin meets his colleagues.43 His attempts to reach meaningful communication regularly fail and his meetings are hasty and unsatisfactory, lending a reading that the protagonist experiences Europe as a capitalist non-space of fleeting professional encounters. The novel consists of thirty-six chapters titled by the names of capital cities of European nation-states – from Bern to Ankara – although the chapters are not necessarily situated in the capitals announced in the respective titles. Robin composes his report as a collection of scenes, experiences and observations: Een mens is altijd onderweg, en soms wil hij bijzondere woorden die hij vindt, meenemen. Ook al is hij ondertussen aan het werk. Mijn schriftje is de opsomming van die vondsten.44

This specific form reinforces the aesthetic principle of collage, gathering heterogeneous elements that illustrate in their diversity the hybrid globalized world of Europe. During a nocturnal moment of self-reflection towards the end of the novel, Robin reviews his notes and formulates his ideal of a hybrid and diverse Europe: ’s Nachts begrijp ik Europa, als mijn raam openstaat en de bloemen in het perk beneden Europees ademen. Of als je een gesprek begint in Boedapest, en iemand antwoord je in Praag. Of je vindt Lissabon terug in Brussel. Je spreekt met een blanke Noor die blij is vanwege de zon, en je kijkt in de Kroatische hand van een Kroatische vrouw. Je hoort de woorden van de Portugees in het vliegtuig. In de krant zijn Grieken verongelukt, en je lacht met het lawaai van de Nederlander, en de Duitser speelt Bach in de kerk, en in een kille straat in Warschau besef je dat je bestaat .... en dat allemaal samen is het profetische portret, het periodiek systeem van Europa. Het stijgt op uit mijn schriftje.45 43

Peeters, Grote Europese Roman, 213: “Eigenlijk zou ik haar baas willen zijn, noteer ik in mezelf.” 44 Ibid., 231: “One is always on a journey, and sometimes, one would like to take along particular words one finds along the road. Even if he is working meanwhile. My little notebook is a record of these discoveries.” 45 Ibid., 263: “At night, I understand Europe, when my window is open and the flowers in the flowerbed downstairs are breathing in a European way. Or when you start a conversation in Budapest, and someone is answering in Prague. Or when you discover Lisbon in Brussels. You talk to a white Norwegian who is thankful for the

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In this passage, Europe is a transnational patchwork of people, cultures, and artefacts united by history, in a good and ugly sense: “Europe … is a melting pot, a mixing container, a steaming pot. Europe is Goethe and Vergil and Napoleon and Hitler.”46 At stake in the novel is an unresolved tension between Robin’s ideal of a humane Europe which is one in diversity and the described reality of Europe, in which economic rivalry among the nation-states makes any form of human contact almost impossible. Europe is at once the object of a utopian desire and a questionable reality. This ambivalence determines the two central lines of action, which can be identified as such particularly towards the end of the novel, before they eventually merge. Robin, the business traveller across economic Europe, narrates Theo Marchand’s family history. Theo Marchand’s father Robert was a Lithuanian Jew who felt threatened by the pre-war rising national socialist sentiments and committed suicide in Brussels. Theo, who had to rebuild the company from scratch, is regularly confronted by antiSemitic comments. He is fed up with the European economic sphere and is forced to sell his company: “Theo’s world was falling to pieces. Most of all he would have liked to evaporate namelessly.”47 Not only the bad conditions of his company and its eventual take-over by a Bulgarian investor are haunting Theo, but the past is also chasing him. When he is looking over the canals in Brussels, he sees blood and pogroms in the sky. Theo’s perception of Europe is a morbid version of Robin’s happy picture of unity in diversity, referring to the victims of European wars and especially of the Holocaust as a shared legacy:

sun, and you look in the Croatian hand of a Croatian woman. You hear the words of the Portuguese in the plane. In the newspaper, some Greeks are reported dead in an accident, and you laugh with the noise of a Dutchman. And the German plays Bach in a church, and in a chilly street in Warsaw you realize you’re alive …. And that all together is the prophetic portrait, the periodical system of Europe. It arises from my notebook.” 46 Ibid., 124: “Europa ... is een mengvat, de smeltpot, de stoofpot. Europa is Goethe en Vergilius, Napoleon en Hitler.” 47 Ibid., 252: “Theo’s wereld viel zo ongeveer uit elkaar. Het liefst van alles zou hij naamloos verdampen.”

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Mijn vader pleegde zelfmoord om niet vermoord te worden …. Europa, dat zijn de namen van de doden op onze gezamenlijke kerkhoven.48

Thus Peeters connects in a problematic way the story of a hegemonic capitalist Europe with the stereotype of the Jewish businessman who is destroyed by history: Theo Marchand, who has seen his father being eliminated by the nationalization of a neighbouring European country, is now in his turn destructed by the economic globalization of Europe. Theo finds a loyal collaborator in Robin, who initially takes on the travel project to save his own career above everything else but grows increasingly desperate. His desolate wanderings across the business world of Europe and his growing interest in Theo’s biography make for a shift in his way of thinking. He starts reading books about the holocaust by Anne Frank, Primo Levi, and Imre Kertész. Accidentally, he meets his former girlfriend Esther in the swimming pool, and discovers that he is the father of her daughter. After this self-discovery, Robin becomes a father and a man at the same time and he finally leaves his career, though involuntarily. The stereotyped story of the Jewish merchant and the one of the insecure present-day figure of Robin intersect in the scene of Robin’s dismissal. Here, the intersection of the Holocaust motif and of the economic Europe takes on rather questionable forms. Robin, who increasingly identifies with the history of the persecuted Jews, conflates his fate as the dismissed employee with nothing less than a vision of the fate of the Jews selected for the gas chambers: Op kantoor word ik direct gebeld …. ‘Je hoeft niet weg’, zegt Remco. ‘Maar de voorwaarden zijn nu erg gunstig.’ Hij zegt wat, maar ik versta hem niet. Ik zie de deur. Daarachter de smalle trap. Staan zij daar en sta ik hier, en mijn handen stijgen belachelijk in de hoogte. ‘So, und jetzt bist du an der Reihe’, en daar verschijnt een kluwen van mensen. Uitgerekt, naakt. De lijken verstrengeld als ze uit de gaskamers worden gehaald.49 48

Ibid., 216-17: “My father committed suicide to avoid being murdered …. Europe, it is the names of the dead buried in our common graveyards.” 49 Ibid., 284: “In the office, I am instantly called …. ‘You don't have to go’, Remco says. ‘But the conditions are presently very interesting.’ He is saying something, but I cannot understand him. I see the door. Behind it, the small flight of stairs. They are

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In this quotation Europe’s history of the Holocaust and the Second World War are juxtaposed with the present-day Europe of neoliberalism. Whereas Jews were eliminated out of the “Volkskörper”, in the present scene employees are being made redundant in the world of trade, which is a rather ahistorical analogy. The motif of the Europe of war-waging nations is repeated, while capitalism is described as present-day fascism. Peeters’ imagery links up historically unconnected European histories into a whole which is at the same time provocative and problematic. Apart from this, it is clear that Theo and Robin represent two different European types. Theo is the pessimistic-ironic intellectual of the post-war era and Robin is the younger, self-reflexive homo economicus of the new millennium. Eventually both drown in the waves of globalization. They share the inability to engage in a meaningful human relationship and their unsuccessful professional life, but also the love for Brussels, which is the topographical as well as thematic centre of the novel. Theo’s company is located in Brussels and he remembers his family history during a walking tour around the city.50 Robin is visiting the social world of the Brussels Bildungsbürger such as the KVS Theatre, the cultural centre De Markten, or renowned restaurants as Bonsoir Clara in the Dansaertstraat.51 Brussels reflects European diversity in the sense that the Flemish, Belgian, and European capital is topographically composed of numerous smaller cultures. It is a liminal space of cultural encounters: Podgorica. In deze straat doe ik mijn Brusselse truc. Via één straat van de ene wereld in de andere stappen …. Wie door de Montenegrostraat loopt, stapt door een spiegel, hij reist, hij wordt iemand anders.52

standing there and I am standing here, and my hands are ridiculously getting up in the air. ‘There, and now it's your turn’, and a bunch of people appears. Stretched out, naked. The bodies are entangled when they are taken out of the gas chambers.” 50 Ibid., 246. 51 Ibid., 40, 224, and 226. 52 Ibid., 207: “Podgorica. On this street, I do my Brussels trick. Stepping via one street from one world into the next …. Walking in Montenegrostraat is like stepping into a mirror, travelling, becoming someone else.”

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Koen Peeters’ Grote Europese Roman imagines the ideal and reality of the European Union through Brussels, which is portrayed as a transformative, multicultural Europe in miniature. In so doing, the novel anticipates in a literary way what Geert Buelens, Jan Goossens, and David Van Reybrouck in their volume Waar Belgie voor staat observe in the political and cultural domain: that Brussels “is forcing us to think about the large social questions in Belgium and Europe. All the large and small communities in Brussels, and there are much more than two, will have to cooperate in order to deal with and solve these questions.”53 From this perspective, Brussels becomes the multicultural avant-garde city of the European integration process. However, because it is bound up in discourses of homogenous Flemish identity, it turns into an alterity space again and again. Further, Grote Europese Roman deploys strategies of multilingualism, the main one being a form of textual multilingualism that inserts foreign languages into the Dutch main text. This counters the imagination of the Dutch language as a closed-off entity. In addition to the deployment of colloquial Dutch54 and various quotations from Latin,55 a range of words, idioms and sentences from Europe’s languages are quoted in Robin’s notebook during his travels. Romanian, Estonian, Slovakian, Hungarian, Czech, Lithuanian, Serbian, Swedish, Slovenian, Italian, and Polish languages are used.56 Robin consciously collects these bits and fragments of languages, words, and meanings and portrays them as an important part of the fascinating diversity of which Europe is composed.57 This also involves his reflections on non-Latin alphabets, amongst others the Slavic or Hebrew ones.58 53 Buelens, Goossens, and Van Reybrouck, Waar België voor staat: Een toekomstvisie, 20: “dwingt ons om na te denken over de grote samenlevingsvraagstukken in België en Europa. Alle grote en kleine gemeenschappen in Brussel, en dat zijn er dus veel meer dan twee, zullen moeten samenwerken om die vraagstukken aan te pakken en op te lossen.” 54 Peeters, Grote Europese Roman, 43. 55 Ibid., 20, 56, 66, 152-153, 156, 164, 209, 228, 242, 248, 256, 266, 269, 276, and 278. 56 Ibid., 42 and 44 (Romanian), 61-62 (Estonian), 73-74 and 78 (Slovakian), 85-86 (Hungarian), 89-90 (Czech), 104 (Lithuanian), 118 (Serbian), 144 (Swedish), 148-49 and 151 (Slovenian), 169 and 171 (Italian), 190 and 196-97 (Polish). 57 Ibid., 77 and 231. 58 Ibid., 67-68 and 195 respectively.

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Opposed to the smaller European languages, the larger, middleEuropean languages – notably English, French, and German – are given a particular status and connotation. English is the novel’s principal language to proclaim all of the problematic effects of European economic globalization. Striking in this respect is that the personalized name of Theo’s company transforms into “CSP – Communications & Sales Partnerships”.59 In some cases, English is deployed as the language of human rights60 or the expression of poetical lyrics,61 but its main connotation is as a vehicle of neoliberal globalization. This is exemplified by terms from the business jargon such as “e-auction”, “workflow”, or “city-marketing” to name just a few examples.62 In a similar vein, a virus-infected email conversation is held in English.63 This conversation symbolizes the Anglo-dominant economic sphere of Europe, particularly its aggressive forms of communication. Perhaps not surprisingly, the German language is similarly inscribed with emblematic meaning, as the language of National Socialism. It is of course hardly neutral, particularly when used as the instructions on the Zyklon-B boxes64 or the dead proclamation in the gas chambers are quoted in the original German.65 By implementing these German sentences into the text, Peeters repeats the idea of the German language as one of the central media of National-Socialist ideology and practices into his concept of a hybrid Europe. As opposed to English and German, the French language is deployed in a more neutral way. This point can be considered as a statement, particularly when seen from the perspective of the longstanding history of communitarian tensions in Belgium. In fact, the two major languages of Belgium are portrayed to coexist fruitfully, which suggests a functioning bilingual Belgium.66 Officially bilingual

59

Ibid., 255. Ibid., 134. 61 Ibid., 138 and 285. 62 Ibid., 88, 82, and 132 respectively. 63 Ibid., 33. 64 Ibid., 283: “Nur durch geübtes Personal zu öffnen und zu verwenden” (“only to be opened and used by experienced staff”). 65 Ibid., 284: “So, und jetzt bist du an der Reihe” (“And now it’s your turn”). 66 Ibid., 25-26, 53-59, and 293. 60

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street and square names in Brussels are in the novel alternatingly referred to by the Francophone and Dutch denominations.67 Peeters’ imagination of a Europe in which equal languages thrive side by side is also visible in a particular trope which underlines his utopia of Europe. Throughout the novel, specific nouns are mentioned as a list of translations in Dutch, English, French and German, sometimes including even more languages.68 This trope is a formal representation of Theo’s interest in language acquisition during his childhood: “Theo inserted a new ink cartridge into his pen, and wrote in slow, school-blue letters: Vader, Vater, father, père. Moeder, Mutter, mother, mere.”69 Theo has a particular interest in the study of bird names in various languages and it is characteristic of birds that they are able to fly across territorial and linguistic borders. The multilingual relation to borderless birds opens up a new, utopian perspective, which is stated explicitly in the envoi which ends the book: Ik wil graag op beschaafde wijze met vogels praten …. Zij zijn de echte internationalen, de handelsreizigers, die vertegenwoordigers …. Ach, mijn Deense rødhals, mijn Zweedse rödhake, mijn Noorse rødstrupe, mijn petirrojo van Spanje en pettirosso van Italië, Erithacus rubecula, mijn Poolse rudzik, þervenka van Tsjechië en Slowakije, mijn Finse punarinta en mijn Ierse spideog, mijn sympatieke țȠțțȚȞȠȜĮȓȝȘȢ van de Grieken.70

67 Ibid., 293. In Jamal Boukhriss’ and Saddie Choua’s prose pieces for the first Flemish anthology of “migration-literature”, the multilinguality of Brussels is turned into an important aesthetic principle (see Jamal Boukhriss, “Alleen tegen de wereld/Seul contre tous” and Saddie Choua, “Les Chips au Paprika”, in KifKif: Nieuwe stemmen uit Vlaanderen, ed. KifKif, Antwerp and Amsterdam: MeulenhoffManteau, 2006, 45-65 and 87-99). 68 Ibid., 109, 122-23, 125-30, 156-59, 186, 189, 229, 235, 249, 272, and 290-92. 69 Ibid., 126: “Theo deed een nieuw inktpatroon in zijn vulpen, en schreef in trage, schoolblauwe letters: Vader, Vater, father, père. Moeder, Mutter, mother, mere.” 70 Ibid., 293-94: “I would like to speak in a civilized manner to the birds …. They are the real internationals, the business travellers, the representatives …. Alas!, my Danish rødhals, my Swedish rödhake, my Norwegian rødstrupe, my petirrojo from Spain and pettirosso from Italy, Erithacus rubecula, my Polish rudzik, þervenka of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, my Finnish punarinta and my Irish spideog, my sympathetic țȠțțȚȞȠȜĮȓȝȘȢ of the Greeks.”

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The unbound freedom of birds and the possibilities of multilinguality beyond the limitations of people and their monolinguality are promoted as the novel’s main image. This stands in explicit contrast to the dominant language and identity discourses which serve to support Flanders as a closed-off, monolingual space. Epilogue: Benno Barnard’s Belgitude In this essay, we have argued that dominant monolingual and monocultural imaginations of Flanders are currently being contested, not only in public debate but also in literary texts. To illustrate this point, we have examined a number of narrative and linguistic strategies in the writings by Chika Unigwe and Koen Peeters respectively, who, each in their own way, abandon monocultural and nation-based ways of thinking and being in the portrayal of protagonists living in Antwerp and Brussels, respectively. In so doing, Unigwe and Peeters deploy strategies of either literary or textual bilingualism and scrutinize the authority of the dominant national language in Flanders. Unigwe engages with a form of literary bilingualism in her bilingual oeuvre, in which Dutch and English language texts are translated, rewritten, and revised in complicated ways. While Unigwe takes up the authorial position of an ethnic minority author in Flanders, her writings simultaneously circulate beyond the topographical space of Flanders and reach a global English readership. The latter at once national and transnational mobility of her writings is reflected in the thematic representation of black womanhood in the book On Black Sisters’ Street. Peeters’ Grote Europese roman shifts the focus to Brussels, a liminal space where the possibilities and limitations of European identity are played out and where the ideal of a unity in diversity cultural model is made to clash with a reality of a neo-liberal economic Europe. In the process, strategies of textual bilingualism, notably the insertion of foreign phrases into the main Dutch texts, and the insertion of strings of translated words, are used. They instantiate the idea of a European commonality across cultural difference, but they also highlight the critical dimensions of this happy multicultural and multilingual idea of Europe. This point is illustrated by the visible, if not stereotypical, connection of English to the economic

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system of neoliberalism, German to the political system of National Socialism, and by the detrimental effects these languages have on human relations. Despite or because of dominant constructions of a monocultural, monolinguistic space in Flanders, the two texts under investigation indicate that aspects of multilingualism and multiculturalism can and do figure in a variety of ways in the literatures produced in Flanders today. These are addressed both by authors who are conventionally considered to be Flemish and of non-Flemish origin. However, we have focused on merely two literary texts, while our argument pertains to a much broader collection of texts. By way of conclusion, therefore, we will briefly broaden our scope and address aspects of multilingualism and multiculturalism in the writings of Benno Barnard, a Dutchman living in Belgium for approximately the last thirty years. Barnard is a poet, novelist, and travel writer who has recently become renowned for his public criticism of Islam. In his view, Islam as a religious principle is incompatible with western democracy based on Enlightenment values. His defence of the headscarf ban71 provoked a considerable response among Muslim intellectuals and activists.72 Although Barnard has been criticized for his anti-Islamic statements, his own position in the Belgian literary field is also rather equivocal. One of Barnard’s predominant preoccupations in his work is the quest for European identity, which he locates in the idealized model of multicultural, multilingual Belgium and compares to the hybridized monarchy of Austro-Hungary and its literature. In his writing, Barnard imagines an idealized image of the contemporary European citizen 71 See, for example, Benno Barnard and Geert Van Istendael, “Bericht aan weldenkend links: Waarom wij het hoofddoekenverbod verdedigen”, De Standaard, 2 February 2008. 72 Cf. Dirk Debruyne, Pascal Debruyne, Ico Maly, Marlies Casier, Sami Zemni, Christopher Parker, Dany Neudt, Bilal Benyaich, Nadia Fadil, Noël Clycq, Sarah De Mul, Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa, Najib Chakouh, and Jan Zienkowski, “Onze islam bestaat niet!” indymedia.be, 12 March 2008, http://www.indymedia.be/index.html %3Fq=node%252F26524.html. On 31 March 2008, Barnard’s speech at the University of Antwerp, scheduled in the series “De erfenis van de verlichting” (“The inheritance of the Enlightenment”), and ironically and provocatively titled “Leve God! Weg met Allah!” (“Long live God! Away with Allah!”) was massively disturbed and had to be cancelled after just a few minutes. Mainly supporters of the radically Islamic website www.sharia4belgium.com claimed responsibility for this action.

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similar to the lifestyle of himself, who is in possession of a Dutch passport, while living in Belgium with a US-American woman and being professionally active as an intellectual in the Flemish public arena and literary field. It is worthwhile to underscore that Barnard’s image of the European citizen stands out because of its Eurocentric nature. It is closely connected to the knowledge of European history and both the humanistic and the Judeo-Christian tradition, while downplaying Europe’s affiliations to the intellectual and religious traditions of other continents. Barnard’s collection of essays Eeuwrest: Een genealogische autobiografie (Century Rest: A Genealogical Autobiography, 2001) is a collection of reflections and travel writing about Belgium, which foregrounds the question of the possibility of a European identity against the background of the catastrophes of the twentieth century. Formally, Eeuwrest conveys the multilingual dimension of European identity which it thematizes. The text is sprinkled with German, English, and French words and attention is drawn to the Greek and Latin linguistic tradition (“zoön politikon”, “creatio ex nihilo”),73 even though Barnard leaves less room in the text than Peeters to the smaller European languages. Barnard’s search for a “Belgian model”, that is, to anticipate a “European model”, is at the same time distinguished from a homogeneous notion of Flemish identity. This is illustrated in the central essay “Waarom ik Belg geworden ben” (“Why I have become Belgian”), originally from 1996: Om te beginnen realiseerde ik me dat ze [de vraag] verkeerd was gesteld. Want wat is het Vlaamse van de Vlaming anders dan een kwestie van natuur, familie, worteling, provincie, dialect, al datgene wat men van zichzelf is zonder daar moeite voor te hoeven doen? .... Het Belgische van de Belg daarentegen, zijn ‘belgitude’, is een kwestie van cultuur, levenswijze, vriendschap, urbaniteit, Nederlands en Frans – en voor die cultuur heb ik gekozen. Ik ben dus om zo te zeggen Belg geworden.74 73

Benno Barnard, “Waarom ik Belg ben geworden”, in Eeuwrest: Een genealogische autobiografie, Amsterdam and Antwerp: Atlas, 2001, 488 and 493, respectively. 74 Ibid., 487-88: “As a start, I realized that it [the question of becoming Flemish] was posed in the wrong way. After all what is the Flemishness of a Fleming other than a matter of nature, family, rootedness, province, dialect, all that which one is effortlessly doing? …. The Belgianness of the Belgian, on the contrary, his

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In this passage, a dichotomy is posited between a Flemish culture oriented towards nature, provinciality, and dialect and a Belgian culture defined by urbanity, lifestyle, and multilingualism to which he himself aligns. In a later section of the essay, this Flemish culture is revealed to be an unreachable impossibility. As Barnard argues, a myth of Flanders originated after the foundation of the Belgian nationstate, and was cherished by the supporters of the Flemish movement, who were members of the Belgian French-speaking bourgeoisie: “The more he [the Flemish nationalist] is pulling at Flanders, the more Belgium is exposed.”75 Barnard not only deconstructs Flemish nationalism on historical grounds, but also scrutinizes some of its representatives with reference to autobiographical anecdotes. He describes Flemish nationalists polemically as no more than representatives of a “gushing, naive, archaic romance” who indulge in “lazy, uncreative, increasingly historical sulkiness” and who only take ethnic pure Dutch speakers from Flanders seriously as discussion partners “when after twenty years of Belgium, I permit myself an opinion about this particular subject”.76 How then does Barnard in Eeuwrest refer to the conventional phrase “belgitude”, which generally denotes the difficulty of Belgium to define itself? As a result of the historical experience that nationalism has led to lost war experiences, according to Barnard, the Belgians have developed an artificial lifestyle in which they create their identity out of a playful engagement with communication, arts, and food. This virtual nature of Belgian identity manifests itself in a specific deployment of language and sign-system with a Babylonian quality: “Sentences said or written in Belgium often do not signify what one would think on first sight, because over generations Belgians

‘belgitude’, is a matter of culture, way of living, friendship, urbanity, Dutch and French – and that’s the culture I chose. I have, as a matter of speaking, become Belgian.” 75 Ibid., 493-94: “Hoe harder hij [the Flemish nationalist] aan Vlaanderen trekt, hoe meer België er te voorschijn komt.” 76 Ibid.: “dweperige, naïeve, archaïsche romantiek”, “luie, oncreatieve, steeds historischer wordende verongelijktheid”, and “wanneer ik mij na twintig jaar België een mening over dit onderwerp permitteer”.

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have been practising in hyperbole, wit and paradox.”77 For Barnard, Belgian identity centres on an “inscrutable semiotics”78 to which ambivalence and multimodality is inherent and which is starkly opposed to the illusion of a clearly defined, unilateral Flemish identity. Barnard is happy to identify with this notion of Belgitude, as he says at the end of the essay, while at the same time he refers to his Dutch passport and his wife’s American nationality.79 Interestingly enough, Barnard plays his own games of identity on different levels: in Belgium, he takes up the hybrid position of a Dutch-Flemish author, while at the same time he presents himself as a BelgianEuropean writer who defends the European Enlightenment. But as a European writer, he reconstructs a strong dichotomy between a humanistic and Christian European tradition and a Muslim Arabic tradition, which does not leave any room for the possibility of hybridization. Texts by Barnard as well as by writers such as Mortier, Unigwe, Peeters and many others underscore in various ways the fundamental impossibility of the myth of a monolithic Flemish culture. Whereas Unigwe draws on her status as a black female hood to draw our attention to a narrative and performative notion of community and belonging beyond ethnic origin, cultural descent, or geographical and national affiliations, Barnard and Peeters rely on a notion of Europe imagined through Belgium and Brussels for the creation of a humanistic, multicultural, and multilingual identity. In On Black Sisters’ Street, this newly imagined community is already realized by the African women living in Zwartezusterstraat, where it emerges as a result of the sexual and racial power relations inherent in Oge’s women’s traffic network, Europe’s sex industry, and heterosexual desire. In the case of Peeters and Barnard, this alternative vision of community must still be won over against the horrors of history, the primacy of the global economy (Peeters), and the contemporary regionalization of Flanders (Barnard). Most certainly, many readers in 77

Ibid., 489: “In België uitgesproken of opgeschreven zinnen betekenen dikwijls absoluut niet wat men zou menen, want de Belgen hebben zich gedurende generaties geoefend in de overdrijving, de boutade, de paradox.” 78 Ibid., 490: “ondoorgrondelijke semiotiek.” 79 Ibid., 494.

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Flanders today eagerly anticipate the effects on the political domain of their efforts to imagine forms of community beyond the monocultural and monolingual hegemonic discourses.

IV A COMPARATIVE VIEW

CONCLUSION: A COMPARATIVE VIEW WOLFGANG BEHSCHNITT, SARAH DE MUL, AND LIESBETH MINNAARD

This volume, Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries, sets out to map and study multicultural literature and its multilingual aspects within an international comparative framework. By juxtaposing the emergence and development of multicultural literature in four West-European countries – Denmark, Flanders,1 the Netherlands, and Sweden – this volume aims to offer insight into and understanding of the particular national complexities involved in these multicultural literatures. Although the method of comparison has been somewhat contested in the ages of multiculturalism and globalization, and the focus of comparative literature as a discipline has shifted away from the national parameters of literature to a more transnational focus on matters such as translation and multilinguality, we believe an international comparative framework that carefully avoids moral judgements and hierarchization still yields knowledge that would otherwise remain hidden in research restricting itself to exclusively national or transnational categories.2 As Wolfgang Behschnitt and Magnus Nilsson, paraphrasing Ronald Greene, point out in the Introduction to this volume, the project of comparing multicultural literatures in various national 1

Flanders is not a nation-state, but a region within the Belgian state. Because of its particular political and linguistic situation as well as its strong national identity, Flanders still lends itself to a comparison with the other mentioned countries. See also Sarah De Mul’s contribution to this volume. 2 On the comparative method in the age of globalization, see Liesbeth Minnaard, New Germans, New Dutch: Literary Interventions, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008, 54-56.

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contexts means studying the specific transactions and negotiations that produce these multicultural literatures and authors. It investigates the processes from which multicultural literatures arise and relates these to the nation-specific social and linguistic frameworks of their production. It avoids the pitfall of conceiving either multicultural literature or its national context as a monolithic and stable totality. As the various contributions in this volume make clear, both the processes that produce the category of multicultural literature and the literary texts considered as such are far from univocal. It is the acknowledgement of their complexities, internal contradictions, ambivalences, and dissonances that prevents us from offering any final conclusions in the following comparative appraisal of multicultural literature in Denmark, Sweden, Flanders, and the Netherlands. Central in this study are the four national contexts already mentioned that, in terms of political prominence, economic influence, language, but also population and partly even geography (the Nordic countries), are generally considered minor or marginal on a WestEuropean scale. Whereas multicultural literatures in major WestEuropean countries, such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, have been relatively well investigated, multicultural literatures in the countries of this study (except for Sweden)3 have, until now, largely been sidelined – inequitably so, as the various articles in this study make clear. The overview essays on the developments in the various literary fields not only provide us with a wealth of information about multicultural literature and its (dis)contents in each country individually, in their specific juxtaposition they enable us to detect shared patterns and conformities as well as exceptions and deviations. In fact, this study demonstrates how discourses on migration and discourses on multicultural literature intertwine in particular yet comparable ways within the respective countries, with various outcomes. In this conclusion we will highlight 3

In Sweden, research on multicultural and multilingual literature has been quite extensive and internationally visible, taking into account the country’s limited size (see, among others, Satu Gröndahl, “Multicultural or Multilingual Literature: A Swedish Dilemma”, Literature for Europe, eds Theo D’haen and Iannis Goerlandt, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009, 173-195; Magnus Nilsson, Den föreställda mångkulturen: Klass och etnicitet i svensk samtidsprosa, Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2010).

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several parallels and similarities between the four countries, as well as some striking differences and specificities of the national situations and literatures discussed. We want to emphasize, however, that each national situation under scrutiny again has its own internal differences, disputes, and ambivalences that interfere and to a certain extent also complicate or undermine the inter-national juxtapositions. Multicultural literature in Denmark, Flanders, the Netherlands, and Sweden Essays three to six in this volume discuss the recent emergence of multicultural literature in the four national situations being compared. They unanimously testify to the heightened discursivity of multicultural literature in each of these four countries in the last two decades. In all of them, the appearance of writers of migrant background in the literary field was discussed, at least in the beginning, as an exceptional phenomenon. The literature of these writers was, and sometimes still is, set aside as different from the Danish, Dutch, Flemish, and Swedish norm. This ascription of difference was mainly ethnically motivated: it is a common characteristic that the initial focus of the public media was on writers’ ethnic background rather than on their literary work. However, this ethnicization does not seem to be an indispensable precondition for the reception of multicultural literature. Change is possible and the central focus can shift from the main interest in writers’ biographies to principal appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of their writing. The authors in the overview articles differ in opinion as to whether this focus can and will eventually disappear. Sweden seems the country in which “migrant writing” has been largely integrated into the literary mainstream. Magnus Nilsson maintains that in Sweden the category of immigrant literature has collapsed, thus causing the “death of the migrant author”. Is this an exceptional situation, a multicultural Swedish model? Or should it rather be considered as a form of progressive integration, an indication that migrant literature as such will gradually disappear in the future? At this point, we cannot provide a definite answer to these questions. Issues central to public debates and critical discourses on multicultural literature are quite similar in the four countries. What first and foremost strikes our attention is the direct link of

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multicultural literature to the larger and often-controversial debates about migration and the multicultural society in general. While growing cultural diversity often gives rise to anxious discussions about the presumed loss of national identity, this diversity simultaneously counts as a first prerequisite for the development of a multicultural literature. This link between migration as a sociopolitical phenomenon and its cultural effects strongly determines discussions on multicultural literature. The marked position of multicultural literature (and its writers) within the literary field appears perfectly in tune with the marked and often marginal position of migrant minority groups within the host societies. Issues of in- and exclusion, foreignness and belonging, and sameness and difference feature prominently in both interlinked discourses. Discussion in the literary field about who can contribute to the national canon seems closely connected to the broader discussion about who can claim a national identity. And also the controversy about the most suitable terminology for this new literature by writers of migrant background resonates with the more general discussion about how to address the “newcomers”. Terminology and ethnic categorization We can assess that the term “multicultural literature” we have chosen to use in this volume (for reasons explained in the Introduction) is rather uncommon in the national contexts discussed. This is not a final state of affairs, however, as the terminologies change over time, in accordance with the progressing conceptualization of this literature. The terminology initially used in literary fields is often akin to the terms used in public discourse on migration and multiculturalism in the various countries. In most cases, this terminology is quickly criticized as ethnically stigmatizing and replaced by seemingly more neutral terms that, nevertheless, never seem fully satisfactory.4 Most terms mainly indicate the non-native background of the writers and in this way confirm their marginal position: “allochtone literatuur” in 4

This evolution does not really apply to the Flemish context, where the term “allochtoon” literature is deployed at the same time that already there also seems to be a search for more neutral terms. This simultaneity may be related to the belatedness of multicultural literature in Flanders and the Flemish awareness of discussions on terminology in other contexts.

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Flanders and the Netherlands,5 and “indvandrerlitteratur” and “invandrarlitteratur” in Denmark and Sweden, respectively. These terms differ in their direct or indirect reference to a history of migration, but, when read in their specific contexts, their functioning appears very similar. All terms emphasize difference and resonate foreignness. The term “allochtoon” writers (and “allochtoon” writing) is in itself the disputed outcome of a search for a more neutral term, and replaces previous terms such as “foreigner” and “(im)migrant” that were increasingly considered discriminatory. In the Dutch context, the term “allochtoon” functions more or less as an umbrella term, including all those who deviate from the native Dutch norm. More than the slightly more specific term “immigrant writers”, in its exclusive focus on ethnic origin, it banishes all the differences between several minority groups. As a result, non-white writers from the former Dutch colonies, writers from an immigrant labour background and their offspring, as well as refugee writers, all end up in one assumedly homogenous and biographically determined category. This homogenizing character might well be one of the reasons why the term remains controversial and continues to cause discomfort among various users, who deploy it for lack of a better alternative. In Flanders, where the term is used in a rather generalizing manner as well, it promotes a similar caution. In Denmark and Sweden, the selective application of the term “immigrant literature” is criticized in addition to its stigmatizing effect and the fact that the term is also applied to the sedentary offspring of actual migrants (the second and third generations). The term “immigrant literature” is only used to refer to the work of writers of “exotic” background, and not to work by West-European immigrant writers.6 Another complication arises in relation to the literature written by members of the national minorities in Sweden and the Greenlandic minority in Denmark. These share the exotic flavour and 5

The term “allochtoon” stems from the Greek roots allos (“other”) and chtoon (“soil”). Liesbeth Minnaard discusses the term more extensively in her contribution on multiculturality in the Dutch literary field in this volume. 6 More recently, in the Dutch and Flemish contexts a further distinction in migrant backgrounds is made: in tune with the discourse on cultural confrontation and the growing centrality of Islam as a marker of difference, the term is now most often used to denote the work by writers of Arab background.

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ethnicizing reception with “immigrant literature”, but they nevertheless inhabit different sectors in the literary field. In the Swedish and Dutch literary field we can detect a gradual movement towards acceptance of writers of migrant background as “national writers” (as Swedish and Dutch writers), a movement that also involves an increasing inclusion of their writing in the mainstream literary field. A separate term becomes superfluous in this situation and most participants in the field express a preference for one inclusive national category: Swedish literature by Swedish writers and Dutch literature by Dutch writers.7 A number of interrelated factors seem of importance here, for instance the fact that Sweden and the Netherlands can both boast a certain tradition and concomitant habituation of multicultural literature by now. Also, the size and public impact of the various multicultural literatures might play a role in the process towards acceptance. The number of publications by Dutch and Swedish writers of migrant background, for example, clearly exceeds that of Flemish or Danish multicultural publications, and popular writers of migrant background, such as Bouazza and Benali in the Netherlands and Kallifatides and Khemiri in Sweden who reach a broad mainstream readership, have no equivalent in Flanders and Denmark yet. The twofold position in which writers of migrant background find themselves appears rather similar in the various national situations. On the one hand, these writers profit from the focussed interest in their writing as immigrant or “allochtoon” writing. It is the ethnicization of their work and the ethnic marking of themselves that affects their heightened visibility in the literary field and that raises the commercial interest of publishing houses and other literary institutions. In Flanders, it even stirred emancipatory governmental support, aimed at 7

In her introduction to the special volume of Contemporary Literature on “Immigrant Fictions”, Rebecca Walkowitz argues that works of Anglophone multicultural literature have increasingly become part of a global book market, crossing borders and circulating in several national literary systems at once (“The Location of Literature: The Transnational Book and the Migrant Writer”, Contemporary Literature IV [2006], 527-45). Whereas we have studied the diversification of various national literary fields after migration, Walkowitz demonstrates how the increasing migration of books again can bring about a transnationalization of national literary fields. The interesting question whether, and in what ways, this also applies to small language areas remains open.

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ethnically diversifying the cultural field. On the other hand, this ethnicization very much functions as a stigmatization of their authorship that often influences the reception of their work in reductive ways. Especially at the beginning of their careers, their literature is mainly read and praised for its social relevance, not because of its aesthetic qualities. The newborn writers themselves are expected to perform as spokespeople for ethnic groups, and as experts in the field of multiculturality and integration. Further, the possibilities for publication seem to depend to a considerable degree on their willingness to perform as a migrant writer, for instance in anthologies with an ethnic label.8 Many writers oppose this tendency and speak out against this ethnic mark(et)ing, but their position remains difficult: they have to play the game in order to gain national fame, at least initially.9 It appears that the ethnicization of a particular author ceases in the course of time and that a third or fourth piece of writing is less liable to be read biographically, or as ethnic documentary, than the debut works. It thus seems that the literary field does get used to foreignsounding authors’ names, especially when readers start to realize that there are few reasonable textual grounds on which to determine this writing as foreign. Forerunners and latecomers? Until now our conclusive discussion of multicultural literature has repeatedly highlighted Sweden and the Netherlands as countries in which the development and acceptance of multicultural literature has proceeded most determinately. In Denmark and Flanders, on the contrary, multicultural literature appears to be a much more recent phenomenon. To explain this discrepancy, the socio-political context seems relevant once again, as well as the issue of national identity. During the 1990s both Sweden and the Netherlands explicitly counted (and perceived of themselves) as exemplary multicultural societies

8

See Gaettens’ contribution in this volume on what she calls “the anthology trap”. Several writers of migrant background play this game “tongue-in-cheek”. By means of various literary strategies (as parody, hyperbole, and understatement), they apparently confirm but simultaneously undermine the ethnicizing demands of the literary field.

9

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with an international reputation of openness and tolerance.10 The rise to fame (if not hype) of Swedish and Dutch multicultural literature since the 1990s is thus often seen as in accordance with this social situation and reputation. At a time when multiculturalism was still discussed in terms of intercultural exchange and enrichment, the literary field was also expected to demonstrate and profit from cultural diversity.11 And although image and actuality diverge here, as the overview articles of the public and literary discourse on multiculturalism in these two countries make clear,12 this image and the celebrated presence of writers of migrant background in the Swedish and Dutch literary field nevertheless had an important effect on the literary fields in Denmark and Flanders. The idea of belatedness is an important issue in both the Danish and the Flemish discourse on multicultural literature, and is, as the overview articles on the two countries convincingly demonstrate, closely linked to the question of national identity and to the consciousness of the international reputation of the respective countries. The cultural elites in the two countries share an awareness of a negatively marked exceptionality in comparison to other 10

Whereas this idea still more or less applies to Sweden, the image and self-image of the Netherlands has dramatically changed since the rise of Pim Fortuyn’s populist party, his assassination, the murder of Theo van Gogh and its subsequent polarization, as well as the current prominence of Geert Wilders’ populist Freedom Party (PVV) in the Dutch political landscape. In comparison, the recent rise of right-wing populists in Sweden, the electoral success of the Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) in 2010, seems to have a limited impact both on politics and on public discourse – as far as one can judge today. 11 The new centrality of cultural difference and cultural confrontation after the end of the Cold War, which Behschnitt and Nilsson discuss in the Introduction, helps to explain the fact that the interest in literature by writers of migrant background awoke only in the late 1990s. Migration itself was certainly no new phenomenon at that time. In fact, many of the families of the writers who rose to fame in that period had been living in Sweden and the Netherlands since the organized labour migration in the 1960s and early 1970s. 12 The multiculturalization of Swedish and Dutch literature is more complex and problem-ridden than the international image suggests. It is debatable whether the term “multiculturalization” (and its suggestion of fundamental and all-enveloping change) of Swedish and Dutch literature applies in these early years. While only literature by writers of migrant background is called “multicultural”, the term very much functions as a mechanism of marginalization, as a determination of a position outside the mainstream national literature.

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European countries. Not only their respective “big neighbours” – Sweden and the Netherlands – are considered ahead when it comes to multiculturality in the literary field, the considerably more diversified national literatures of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom also count as examples in this respect. The fact that a multicultural literature is presented as an international asset is remarkable, given the controversy of multiculturalism as a socio-political theme. Whereas on an international level a multicultural literature counts as a sign of globalized modernity, on a national level the multiculturalization of literature prompts precarious negotiations over the definition of national literature and on issues of canonization. In both the Danish and the Flemish contexts the growing awareness of lacking a multicultural literature resulted in positive action that aimed to make up for the multicultural backlog. However, whereas the Flemish initiative took place on the governmental level, in Denmark it was a private (and partly commercial) initiative that aimed to multiculturalize Danish literature. In Flanders, the Ministry of Culture initiated a cultural policy programme (1999-2004 and 2004-2009) to promote diversity and interculturality in the Flemish cultural field. Sarah De Mul argues that the Flemish desire for a multicultural literature cannot be divided from the broad discourse on Flemish national/cultural identity and from the Flemish longing to withstand the competition (as an independent national literature) with Dutch literature. In Denmark, positive action was initiated by a publishing house and a newspaper that collaborated in the organization of a writing contest for writers of non-Danish background in 2006. Dörthe Gaettens demonstrates how this initiative is connected to the fear felt by the political and cultural elite for a xenophobic, even racist, international reputation strengthened by the 2005 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons crisis. Other than in the Flemish situation the promotion of multiculturalism remained restricted to the literary field and seemed of no concern to mainstream Danish politics. On the contrary, the conservative Danish government (2001-2011) either ignored or explicitly rejected Danish multiculturalism and propagated a monocultural Danish identity instead.

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Multilingualism and monolingual language discourses When we began working on this volume, we departed from the fundamental assumption that multilingualism and language matters in general are an important aspect of our modern multicultural societies.13 Social developments, such as migration, the democratization of travel, and increasing access to information facilitated by new communication technologies, have led to an increasing exposure to multiple languages. However, in many countries political and institutional discourses of monolingualism keep exerting a considerable influence, not least since these are part and parcel of a dominant framework underpinned by a notion of homogenous national culture. Migrants, as Elien Declercq and Michael Boyden rightfully remind us, are frequently under strong pressure to adapt to the norms of the dominant culture and to prove their eligibility as citizens by learning the standard language of the host society. Monolingualist discourses also tend to ignore the linguistic diversity inherent in any real life language situation. Dialects, sociolects, technical languages, group languages, and other varieties form a field of overlapping and opposing “lects” that make it difficult to maintain the concept of monolingualism at all. By highlighting the internal diversity of every language, several of the literary texts studied in this volume undermine the conventional conception of the multilingual society as a meeting place of different languages (the national standard in opposition to migrants’ foreign languages) and 13 It is ironic, then, that these articles discussing multilingualism in literatures written in smaller language areas are still written in the global academic language of English and circulated in an Anglophone-dominant academic book circuit. It is a point that sharply brings into view Brian Lennon’s critical observation about the current concern with multilingualism in the discipline of comparative literature in his In Babel’s Shadow: Multilingual Literatures, Monolingual States, where he writes: “in the critical study of contemporary literature, the plurilingual spirit of this new emphasis collides with the monolingual letter of the publication industry that produces books …” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2010, 2). In addition, the plurilingual spirit of our enterprise collides with the exigencies of linguistic internationalization exerting an ever-stronger influence on academics today forcing Belgian, Danish, Dutch, and Swedish scholars to publish in our one and only globalized lingua franca, despite writing on Belgian, Danish, Dutch, and Swedish subjects. This is just one way that states the obvious to any bilingual: that language is fundamentally an instrument of symbolic action and that power relations determine linguistic transfers.

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show that monolingualism is in principle always an illusionary idea: these texts mix dialects and slang (Marjaneh Bakhtiari), introduce archaic forms (Hafid Bouazza), or engage in Modernist language experiments and the use of ready mades (Mustafa Stitou), just to mention some examples. De Grote Europese Roman by Koen Peeters or Eeuwrest by Benno Barnard can also be seen to act out multilingual strategies which question the belief that dominant national languages are monolithic entities. Thus, we support Dirk Delabatista’s and Rainier Grutman’s plea for a broad conception of multilingualism – a conception exceeding traditional notions of languages – and their admonition to keep in mind “how shifty and problematic the dividing line [between ‘languages’ and ‘language varieties’] really is”.14 Due to such a broad conception, the focus of this volume is not confined to literary texts written by bi- or multilingual authors, or to authors who are conceived of as migrant authors.15 It seemed probable, however, that bilingual authors or authors living in a bilingual situation would be especially alert to language matters, and that their literature might reflect the interplay of different languages and varieties on a thematic and/or formal level. It also seemed plausible that the reception of such literature would dedicate particular attention to language.16 These assumptions are supported by the majority of contributions to our volume that have put bilingual authors and their works at the centre of attention. 14

Dirk Delabastita and Rainier Grutman: “Introduction: Fictional Representations of Multilingualism and Translation”, Fictionalising Translation and Multilingualism, eds Dirk Delabastita and Rainier Grutman, Linguistica Antverpiensia, IV (Special Issue 2005), 16. 15 Søren Frank proposes a thematic perspective on multicultural or migration literature, which explicitly refrains from connecting these concepts to the biography or ethnic affiliation of the author (Søren Frank, Migration and Literature: Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, and Jan Kjærstad, New York: Palgrave, 2008). Sarah De Mul and Thomas Ernst’s contribution, which includes a discussion on the writings of Peeters and Barnard, proves the usefulness of such a view. 16 In one of the few recent comparative approaches to multilingual literature, Literatur und Vielsprachigkeit (2004), Monika Schmitz-Emans, states that “works of such authors who stand permanently between languages” are of special interest, because such authors “have more than one cause, to take up the issue of language borders, since the borders between idioms correspond to social borders” (“Literatur und Vielsprachigkeit: Aspekte, Themen, Voraussetzungen”, in Literatur und Vielsprachigkeit, ed. Monika Schmitz-Emans, Heidelberg: Synchron, 2004, 13).

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Apart from the more general assumption, that language matters are a crucial issue in such literary texts, we have also considered in this volume if and in what manner the national language politics and language discourses might be reflected in literature. The status of the respective national languages has been, in various ways, a predominant field of public and political debate in the countries in question: in Flanders, the advance of Dutch (as a counterweight to the former French dominance) has been an issue for decades. In addition, growing political autonomy and national self-awareness have also promoted a sense of linguistic independence in relation to the Netherlands and a striving for the recognition of Flemish (Belgian Dutch) as a full-fledged variant of Dutch.17 As in other countries, the growing relevance of English in politics, economics, and academia, together with the increasing proliferation of migrant languages, complicates the situation. In the process, the perception that Belgium is a multilingual, rather than a bilingual country, seems to be establishing itself rather slowly. In Sweden, the heightened attention to language matters is partly due to the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages from 1992, which mandates the government to reformulate Swedish language politics and state the language rights of the national minorities, granting Saami, Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, and Yiddish the status of national minority languages. This, in its turn, has been the starting point for a discussion about the role of Swedish in today’s society: by the 2009 language law, the status of Swedish as Sweden’s main language was officially recorded for the first time. The consequences of this legislation is double-edged: while the status of minority languages is improved, new borders have been drawn between those acknowledged as national languages and others, namely immigrant languages, without any legal status.18 Denmark is an interesting case because language has been considered a fundamental constituent of Danish culture since the emergence of a national consciousness in the nineteenth century.19 17

José Cajot, “Van het Nederlands weg? De omgangstaal in Vlaanderen”, Ons erfdeel: Vlaams-Nederlands cultureel tijdschrift, I (2010), 14-25. 18 Gröndahl, “Multicultural or Multilingual Literature”, 175-77. 19 Pia Jarvad, ெDet danske sprogs status i 1990’erne med særligt henblik på domænetab”, Dansk sprognævns skrifter, XXXII (2001), 18-19.

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Since 2001, the conservative government has only heightened public attention of Danish as the national language, and has taken a number of initiatives to secure its status and “increase language-joy and pride of the Danish language”.20 While the edge of these initiatives is primarily turned against the threat of global English, immigrant languages have also felt the effects of the government’s monolingual policy, for example by the abolition of obligatory home language education in 2002.21 In the Netherlands, language matters have not taken as much space in the public debate and politics as in the other three countries, but this situation seems to be changing. Since the change of government in 2010 to a liberal-right coalition dependent on the support of the antimigration party PVV of Geert Wilders, more attention has been paid to the protection of Dutch monoculture, including the Dutch language. New initiatives to guard Dutch culture against foreign influences vary from the obligation for newcomers as well as “oldcomers” (persons who migrated to the Netherlands in earlier years) to obtain a language certificate, to the recent PVV proposal to establish a quota to guarantee a fixed percentage of Dutchophone music being played on Dutch radio (Broadcast Radio 2).22 Literature and language discourse With respect to literature and its relation to Danish, Dutch, and Swedish, we have also wondered, if the perceived small size of these languages would be a topic in literary texts.23 Would it not seem 20 Sprog til tiden: Regeringens opfølgning av sprogudvalgets rapport, The Danish Government, Kulturministeriet, March 2009, 8. See also the government language commission’s reports Sprog på spil (2003) and Sprog til tiden (2008), published by the Ministry of Culture. 21 Until 2002, the school law (folkskoleloven) obliged Danish communities to offer athome language education to all pupils with a first language other than Danish. In 2002, the parliament abolished this regulation. Nowadays, it is only EU citizens who, following an EU directive from 1977, can claim at-home language education for their children (see Danmark har ondt i modersmålet: En kortlægning af kommunernes modersmålsundervisning i skoleåret 2007/08, ed. Dokumentations- og rådgivningscentret om racediskrimination (DRC), Copenhagen, 2008). 22 The majority of the Dutch House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) accepted this PVV proposal 30 June 2011. 23 See, for example, the fourth of Behschnitt and Nilsson’s “five fundamental points of departure for the contributions to this volume” in their article.

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illogical for a migrant author to first acquire and then write in such a relatively marginal language, if he or she could write instead in English or French? One of the few examples where the question is reflected on the thematic level of the literary text is mentioned by Peter Leonard in this volume: for the hero in Azar Mahloujian’s novel De sönderrivna bilderna (The Torn Pictures, 1995), an Iranian immigrant to Sweden, “this Northern language seems too un-worldly, resonating in only a small, dark corner of the globe”. But the hero in Mahloujian’s novel learns later about the practical usefulness of commanding this “un-worldly” language, and it seems, that this corresponds to the experience of many authors whose works are discussed in this volume.24 Marjan Nijborg and Fouad Laroui seek a plausible explanation for the fact that a large number of authors of Moroccan origin decide to write in the “small” Dutch language: the Moroccan linguistic context being scattered between classical Arabic language, various dialects, and the French language of the ex-colonizer, they argue that Dutch offers for many Moroccan-origin authors “a welcome tool for emancipation”; it offers a solution to the intractable problem of having no access to a single language of expression and at the same time too many, albeit flawed, languages in which to express themselves. Other authors may make tactical choices, involving what Declercq and Boyden identify as “literary bilingualism”, that is, choosing different languages for different texts depending on, for example, the genre or the intended readership. Here, too, the choice of a “small” language may render practical advantages. One example of literary bilingualism discussed in this volume is the oeuvre of Chika Unigwe, who writes in Dutch and English. By using Dutch, Sarah De Mul and Thomas Ernst argue, Unigwe takes up the position of ethnic minority writer in Flanders, while writing in English simultaneously allows her to launch her work and partake successfully in a global literary system that catapults her work far beyond the localized Flemish literary field.

24

It is noteworthy, however, that in none of our national contexts did we find an explicit language memoir, an account of a migrant’s language acquisition, or, as Brian Lennon formulates in his In Babel’s Shadow, “a memoir of second- (or third- or fourth-) language acquisition, … the Bildungsroman of a second (or third, or fourth) self in language” (25).

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The seeming advantages of bilingualism can easily transform, however, into a handicap in a literary field dominated by normative monolingualism. When Unigwe debuted with her novel De Feniks in Flanders, she was confronted by sceptical reviewers who had difficulties with her Dutch-language novel being based on a manuscript originally written in English. Another recurrent issue in the reception of writing analysed in this volume is good proficiency in the dominant national language, and concomitantly, the covered or uncovered assumption that ethnic minorities may lack sufficient linguistic skills. In the Danish context, Niels Beider of Gyldendal publishing house sought an explanation of why so far Danish literature does not include a large number of ethnic minority writers when he stated that those writers’ Danish is “simply not good enough”.25 Ruben Palma confirms that as an ethnic minority writer his freedom to experiment in Danish is restricted; if he comes up with unusual expressions, new words, or puns, he is reproached for writing poor Danish. Palma’s observation suggests, then, that a presumed lack of proficiency in the dominant national language is underlying the reception of his attempts at literary innovation (as Gaettens detects). Not only criticism, but praise can also be proof of the readership’s focus on language proficiency as a discriminatory marker: proficiency in the standard national language becomes part of the criteria by means of which writings by successful ethnic minority authors are merited. As Liesbeth Minnaard points out in her discussion of the wide acclaim of Bouazza’s work, the critic Ton Anbeek wondered if Bouazza’s stylistic tour de force was not being celebrated in terms of a rich Dutch vocabulary: “What is being praised now, Bouazza’s talent, or the fact that he knows more Dutch words than the average native Dutch person?”26 Finally, deviations from the normative monolingual norm may also be read in terms of exoticism, which can be seen as the ideological twin of the reading frame of normative monolingualism. Multilingual prose including foreign or non-standard linguistic variants is often received as a hallmark of exoticism by a middle-class readership who 25

Aydin Soei, “Dansk indvandrer-litteratur – har vi det?”, Information, XXIII (February 2006), 18-19. 26 Ton Anbeek, “Fataal success: Over Marokkaans-Nederlandse auteurs en hun critici”, Literatuur, VI (1999), 341.

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can revel in reading text portions which are almost the same language but not quite. It is an issue Nilsson touches upon in his analysis of the reception of the use of broken Swedish in Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s debut novel Ett öga rött (One Eye Red, 2003). That such an exoticizing reading depends on the categorization of the author as ethnic minority writer is shown in a comparison with texts of Koen Peeters and Benno Barnard, who employ multilingual strategies as well. In their work, however, multilingualism is generally not the reviewer’s focus of attention, or it is seen in terms of a literary expression of a cosmopolitan worldview or international orientation. In such readings, an erroneous presumption can be uncovered, namely that ethnic identity, language, and literature interconnect in unambiguous ways, a point criticized in various ways throughout this volume. Do language politics and discourses on language (the smallness of national languages, ethnic varieties, mono- and multilingualism) actually appear as issues in the literary texts? Comparing the situation in our four countries, we have to assess considerable differences. The articles about Denmark, Flanders, and the Netherlands have given little evidence of language – and in particular language discourses and politics – being a prominent and explicit topic in literary texts. The articles on Sweden, however, have presented not only a considerable number of examples of language matters being discussed explicitly in literature, they even suggest that literature might be contributing to and influencing discourses on language. Wolfgang Behschnitt’s article on multi-ethnic youth language in Swedish literature maintains that the use of multi-ethnic slang in literary texts since the turn of the century has not only contributed to a rise in status of this variety, but is also used as an argument in debates about the relation between standard and slang in school education and with respect to home language education. Leonard’s and Nilsson’s articles about Swedish literature show the presence of these topics in a number of literary texts. In his autobiographical report Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster (A New Country Outside My Window, 2001), Theodor Kallifatides, who came to Sweden from Greece in the 1960s, tackles the system of home language education and wonders provocatively why his children are still supposed to learn Greek, while he has striven a whole life

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long to learn Swedish.27 Authors of the younger generation treat such topics playfully or ironically. Marjaneh Bakhtiari, for example, parodies in her novels the multitude of efforts to promote multiculturalism in Sweden and makes fun of people appropriating multi-ethnic slang in order to prove her political correctness.28 It would need a more systematic approach to be able to develop a plausible explanation for the differences between the Swedish situation on one side, Denmark, Flanders, and the Netherlands on the other side. At this point, we can state two things: first, there has been a lively debate about language matters in Sweden since the turn of the century, to which literary texts have clearly contributed. Though there has been increasing attention on Swedish as the national language culminating in the 2009 language law, the overall attitude towards multilingualism still seems quite favourable. Second, the young generation of authors, categorized as “ethnic writers” raised in Sweden, have contributed most effectively to putting multilingualism on the agenda, and they have done so in a playful and ironic way that undermines traditional assumptions about the relation of language and ethnic identity.29 However, the positive attitude towards multilingualism in Sweden mainly concerns multi-ethnic youth language, a hybrid variety of Swedish, and not foreign languages. This would confirm Lennon’s assumption that hybridization does not upset the general rules of standardization to the same degree as an actual mix of languages. Hybrid varieties can serve, instead, to innovate and to reassert the national standard by proving its flexibility and “powers of incorporation as literary standard”.30 From the writers’ perspective, it can be asked if it needs a secure and natural command of various languages, including the national 27

Theodor Kallifatides, Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster, Stockholm: Bonniers, 2001. Marjaneh Bakhtiari, Kalla det vad fan du vill, Stockholm: Ordfront, 2005, 168. 29 When Monika Schmitz-Emans and Manfred Schmeling reflect on the various functions multilinguality in literary texts can adopt – causing confusion and conflict on one side, and allowing for ெdelightening diversity” on the other (Manfred Schmeling and Monika Schmitz-Emans, “Einleitung”, in Multilinguale Literatur im 20: Jahrhundert, eds Manfred Schmeling and Monika Schmitz-Emans, Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 2002, 19) – in these Swedish texts, multilingualism appears above all as a self-evident social fact which should neither be praised nor problematized. 30 Lennon, In Babel’s Shadow, 11. 28

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standard, to adapt such a playful and balanced approach to multilingualism. Does it need a more distanced position to questions of language and ethnic identity than most first-generation immigrants can have? To either confirm or contest these hypothetical reflections, further comparative studies would be necessary. To take an example from still another national context, the case of Feridun Zaimoglu’s Kanak Sprak (1995), an equally successful brutal attack on the German national language standard, shows that more polemic attitudes are possible for second-generation authors.31 Multilingual strategies in literature Literary texts play a fundamental role in the struggles between languages in the respective social context in which they circulate without, nevertheless – and this point deserves underscoring – offering a mimetic representation mirroring these linguistic transfers and negotiations in society. Indeed, multilingual texts need not at all be read as fictional representations of a social reality. In certain cases, they can as well be interpreted as language experiments in the vein of Modernist aesthetics. The contributors to this volume have criticized the conventional assumption that multilingual literature is a social instrument that translates and integrates the autobiographical perspectives and real-life experiences of ethnic minority communities into the dominant language. According to this disputable logic, multilingual literature would not only be closely connected to the author’s ethnic background but would also be considered to facilitate intercultural understanding and communication between ethnic and non-ethnic citizens of a given country. As opposed to the latter view, which, amongst other problems, downgrades the literary qualities of multicultural literature, this volume has scrutinized the aesthetics of multilingualism as well as its political dimensions. To be more specific, from a range of theoretical perspectives, the contributors have examined the myriad ways by which the multilingual dimensions of multicultural literature can be 31

For more extensive studies of Zaimoglu’s Kanak Sprak see, among others, Minnaard, New Germans, New Dutch and Klaus-Michael Bogdal, “Wo geht’s denn hier nach Kanakstan? Deutsch-türkische Schriftsteller auf der Suche nach Identität”, in Literatur und Vielsprachigkeit, ed. Monika Schmitz-Emans, Heidelberg: Synchron, 2004, 237-47.

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seen as specific strategies in relation to the linguistic context in which these are inscribed and the language struggles that characterize this context. While in the previous pages the contextual aspects of multilingualism have been extensively explored, in what follows, we will flesh out what specific forms and functions multilingual strategies in literature may take. Most writings discussed in this volume can be considered to perform what Declercq and Boyden call “textual bilingualism”, referring to the notion that the surface language is inscribed by another language so that different voices are competing for dominance in the text. The nature and form of textual bilingualism, however, can vary greatly from text to text. In what follows, we will discern three pivotal functions obtained by forms of textual bilingualism across their divergent national and linguistic contexts, which sometimes appear simultaneously: first, the subversion of dominant conceptions of language and their linkages with ethnic identity; second, the questioning of the literary canon; and finally, the new imagination of identity. In Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novel Ett öga rött, the protagonist Halim writes a diary in Swedish multi-ethnic youth language. In Nilsson’s reading of the book, this specific language variant is used at once to trigger and to question the audience’s expectations about an immigrant novel being a realistic account of migrants’ life and language experiences. Khemiri acts out the linguistic code conventionally associated with ethnic youths for satirical purposes. Although writing in multi-ethnic slang, Halim also switches between linguistic registers and meta-linguistic comments; this hints at the fact that his use of slang is not due to lack of proficiency but is his personal choice. In a similar vein, Nilsson considers how the specific multilingual strategies in Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s novel Kalla det vad fan du vill (Call It What The Heck You Like, 2005) serve to question existing hierarchies between standard and broken Swedish language variants in society. Different variations of broken Swedish are spoken by a number of characters, whereas both ethnic and non-native Swedes are talking in the same accentuated Scanian dialect variant. Forms of code switching like these highlight the folly of connecting the two linguistic codes of broken and standard Swedish language to specific ethnic identities in Swedish society.

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Behschnitt similarly focuses on literary instances of textual bilingualism including broken Swedish phrases and idioms in, amongst others, the young poet Johannes Anyuru’s work. The latter inserts Swedish youth language following The Latin Kings’ repertoire of hip hop lyrics and passages from the classical literary heritage into standard Swedish. According to Behschnitt, the introduction of the hip hop band The Latin Kings and their lyrics into the realm of literature has contributed to a rise in status and to an augmentation of the symbolic capital of multi-ethnic youth language and its use in the national public arena. In addition, Anyuru establishes analogies between The Latin Kings and canonical Swedish texts for the purpose of rewriting the Swedish literary canon and undermining its hegemony. In the context of the Netherlands, and more specifically in the work of Hafid Bouazza, the destabilization of the dominant national language and literature from within this dominant language is at stake, but a dissimilar form of textual bilingualism is deployed. Henriëtte Louwerse demonstrates how in Bouazza’s writings the Dutch standard language is infused with archaic Dutch words, a baroque style, neologisms, and unexpected compounds. While reviewers regularly connect his flowery literary idiom to his modern Arabic linguistic background and literary traditions, Bouazza seduces his reader into exotic readings of a Dutch home-grown linguistic heritage they have forgotten. Exploring linguistic otherness within the dominant national language, Bouazza challenges the native-immigrant opposition. Yves T’Sjoen discusses a specific strategy of textual bilingualism in the work of the Dutch poet of Moroccan-origin Mustafa Stitou, who, like Bouazza, inscribes a variant of Dutch into the Dutch surface language so as to instigate a non-ethnicized reading of his poetry. In the wake of the Dutch poetic tradition of neo-Dadaism and neorealism of the 1960s, Stitou inserts ready-mades – colloquial language, newspaper clippings, grocery lists – into the text. This endeavour is, according to T’Sjoen, not a cultural critique addressing the status and position of migrants in Dutch society. Rather, the very possibility of a linguistic universe is being scrutinized and the philosophical question of language – any language – is central to Stitou’s volume.

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Focusing on migrant literature in Denmark, Søren Frank connects strategies of textual bilingualism to the imagination of new notions of human identity beyond normative monolingualism and monoculturalism. Drawing on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, Frank observes “an aesthetics of muddification” at work in multicultural literature, which includes linguistic hybridity to render an expression of the protagonists’ ambivalent cultural loyalties and linguistic affiliations, in the case of Rushdie’s novel, to Britain and India. This particular multilingual strategy is constitutive of a view of identity “as open network of roots spread out horizontally instead of either complete rootlessness or the more old-fashioned tree-like rootedness implying a pure monocultural and monolinguistic identity”. Frank also argues that multilingual strategies as well as thematic issues of migration, interculturality, and national identity are increasingly addressed in the works by ethnic Danish writers such as Karsten Lund or Olav Hergel. Frank’s argument to loosen the link between authorial biography and literary content links up his contribution with that of De Mul and Ernst, in which strategies and representations of multiculturalism and multilingualism are also explored in contemporary prose texts in Flanders by ethnic as well as non-ethnic Flemish authors. Additionally, Frank’s concern with the multilingual imagination of new forms of identity seems to be recurrent in a series of other texts analysed in this volume. The Moroccan-Dutch author Hafid Bouazza’s emphasis on metamorphoses or the Dutch-Belgian writer Benno Barnard’s notion of Belgitude could also be considered in this light. No conclusion: further expansion Exploring and comparing multilingual aspects of multicultural literature in a range of different national contexts has directed us into a quickly developing and multifaceted field. Bringing together texts and contexts which have hitherto not been juxtaposed, we have uncovered several illuminating similarities and differences between the situations in Denmark, Flanders, the Netherlands, and Sweden. These have raised new questions begging further address: to what extent do politics, multicultural discourses, and multicultural policies impact upon literary developments? Is there a possible time factor involved in the development and reception of “multicultural literature”? Does the

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focus generally shift from an author’s ethnic background to literary aesthetics, and if so, can the marked category of “multicultural literature” be expected to disappear? Other important issues require further exploration, for example, the extent to which multicultural and multilingual literature in some cases could become a symbolic asset for the nation, or how normative monolingualism affects the reception of multilingual texts. From this point we see at least two promising directions for further research. Firstly, a possible strand of research that seeks a more detailed and methodologically sophisticated understanding of the nature and development of multicultural literature in a specific social, political, economic, and linguistic context. This kind of research seems particularly relevant in the case of Denmark and Flanders, where so far very little research has been done on the topic. Secondly, it would be fruitful to advance a type of comparative research that broadens the perspective taken in this book. Multicultural texts and contexts in minor languages which have not extensively been studied could either be fruitfully related to the cases of Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Flanders, or, our cases could be compared to the development of multicultural literatures in major countries such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with special focus on the differences between large and small language areas. If this volume helps to clear the path for more research of literature, language, and multiculturalism in any of these two future research directions, it has fulfilled its goal.

INDEX

A Absillis, Kevin, 138 Aburas, Lone, 94, 95, 96, 216 Aidt, Naja Marie, 78, 79, 80, 81, 210, 211 Alakoski, Susanna, 193, 194 Ali, Monica, 59, 84, 210 allochtoon, xiii, 97, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 118, 123, 124, 125, 127, 130, 132, 133, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 280, 320, 321, 322

B Bakhtiari, Marjaneh, 3, 42, 49, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 61, 180, 181, 188, 189, 190, 211, 327, 333, 335 Barnard, Benno, xi, xii, 283, 285, 291, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 327, 332, 337 Bazeghi, Shadi Angelina, 85, 91, 92, 94 Behros, Fateme, xi, 151, 155, 156, 157, 172 Belgitude, 308, 312, 337 Ben Jelloun, Tahar, 3, 202 Benali, Abdelkader, 100, 102, 104, 105, 113, 117, 118,

119, 121, 123, 227, 233, 234, 271, 273, 322 Bezaz, Naima El, 102, 113, 117, 227, 249, 268, 271 Bildungsroman, 47, 97, 183 bilingualism, xi, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 36, 48, 51, 54, 105, 157, 178, 184, 194, 195, 211, 274, 292, 297, 299, 308, 309, 330, 331, 335, 336, 337 black womanhood, 292, 293, 294, 295, 308 Book Week, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 230, 273 Bouazza, Hafid, x, xii, 3, 13, 97, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 227, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 262, 270, 271, 273, 322, 327, 331, 336, 337 Bourdieu, Pierre, 65, 76, 179, 225, 227, 229, 230

C Capart, Victor, 32, 33 cartoon crisis, 64 Ceuppens, Bambi, 126, 127, 129, 288

340

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism

code switching, 17, 28, 335 Collective Promotion of the Dutch Book. See CPNB colonial history, 98, 108, 208, 209 Comparative Literature, 14, 286, 317, 326 CPNB, 112, 230, 273 Cultural Canon Denmark,86,87

D da Silva, Guilem, 150 De Kremer, Raymond Jean, 25 displacement, 22, 144, 155 Doggelito, Dogge, 183, 191

E E. du Perron Prize, 100, 121 el Halawani, Nassrin, 91, 94 El Hizjra Foundation,101 Prize,102,273

Erdem, Adil, 214, 215 Europe, 37, 42, 45, 48, 71, 87, 97, 107, 125, 141, 143, 169, 175, 199, 200, 231, 232, 286, 292, 296, 297, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 312, 318 exotic, 2, 8, 9, 46, 52, 81, 94, 103, 106, 114, 115, 121, 139, 153, 177, 193, 230, 233, 248, 272, 274, 275, 280, 292, 293, 295, 321, 336 exoticism, 44, 331

F Ferguson, Charles A., 18, 19, 20, 21 Fishman, Joshua, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 36, 37, 178 Flemishness, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 139, 142, 146, 284, 288, 289, 311 Fortuyn, Pim, 116, 119, 324 Fukuyama, Francis, 6, 7

G ghetto, 13, 58, 94, 175, 176, 177, 179, 183 Giacobbe, Maria, 25, 211, 212, 213, 215, 219, 223 globalization, ix, 4, 12, 15, 37, 63, 110, 117, 198, 200, 201, 221, 293, 303, 304, 306, 317 glossary, 181, 190, 191, 195, 249 Goli, Marco, 81, 90, 94, 209, 220 Grass, Günter, 18, 201, 203, 207, 220, 327 Grøndahl, Jens Christian, 222, 223 Gür, Halil, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 227, 228

H Hall, Stuart, 9, 10, 185 Hergel, Olav, 222, 337 heritage, 10, 63, 64, 87, 135, 157, 158, 160, 182, 185,

Index 190, 200, 201, 250, 253, 284, 288, 336 heterolingualism, 25, 48 hip hop, xi, 175, 176, 180, 183, 184, 186, 187, 188, 192, 194, 195, 240, 336 Hobsbawm, Eric, 37 home, ix, xii, 19, 28, 31, 43, 45, 84, 88, 111, 115, 157, 159, 169, 170, 176, 187, 205, 214, 215, 216, 228, 250, 255, 270, 271, 296, 329, 332, 336 home-language education, 43 Homer, 13, 182, 201 Huntington, Samuel P., 6, 7, 127 hybridity, 144, 205, 206, 207, 221, 337

I identity politics, 47, 134, 141, 195 immigrant politics, 42 integration, 36, 66, 70, 71, 72, 79, 93, 99, 106, 116, 120, 121, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 284, 305, 319, 323 inter-generational, 154 Islam, 88, 122, 127, 144, 204, 246, 253, 264, 309, 321

J Jacobs, Dirk, 145, 146, 287 Jean Ray. See De Kremer, Raymond Jean

341 John Flanders. See De Kremer, Raymond Jean

K Kallifatides, Theodor, xi, 25, 45, 46, 49, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 171, 172, 173, 322, 332, 333 Katz, Janina, 77, 213, 215, 223 Khader, Nasser, 89 Khemiri, Jonas Hassen, 13, 42, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 84, 153, 175, 179, 180, 181, 185, 189, 190, 193, 195, 211, 322, 332, 335 Kjærstad, Jan, 203, 206, 207, 208, 220, 223, 327 Koran, 204, 206, 236, 237 Kosoviü, Birgithe, 216, 217, 218, 219, 223 Kureishi, Hanif, 84, 210, 211

L Langvad, Maja Lee, 216 Leiva Wenger, Alejandro, 46, 55, 84, 176, 177, 180, 181, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 195 Libris Literature Prize, 118, 273 Lund, Karsten, 222, 337

342

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism

M Mahloujian, Azar, xi, 151, 153, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 330 marketing, 57, 85, 103, 104, 107, 113, 265, 273, 299, 306 Meškoviü, Alen, 94, 95, 215, 216 metamorphosis, 205, 207, 221, 246, 247, 250, 251, 256, 257, 259, 261, 262 Michaels, Walter Benn, 7, 8, 9 migrancy, 144, 291 minority languages, 15, 23, 43, 328 mobility, 125, 145, 146, 199, 205, 295, 297, 308 multicultural drama, 116 multi-ethnic youth language, xi, 4, 49, 51, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 332, 333, 335, 336 multilingualism, 1, 2, 14, 17, 18, 19, 24, 27, 30, 32, 45, 184, 194, 219, 285, 289, 297, 305, 309, 311, 326, 327, 332, 333, 334, 337 mythology, 259, 262

N Nagel, Carsten, 222 Nasr, Ramsey, 99, 121, 275 Nobel Prize, 24, 201, 207, 214, 237, 238, 241

Nordisk Råds litteraturpris, 208

O oral culture, 229, 242 Ovid, 13, 200, 251, 252, 256

P Palma, Rubén, 68, 73, 77, 81, 90, 92, 213, 214, 215, 220, 331 Peeters, Koen, xi, xii, 107, 283, 285, 291, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 310, 312, 313, 327, 332 perkerdansk. See multi-ethnic youth language politics of recognition, 10, 130, 185 postcolonial literature, 98, 108, 121

R racialization, 54 Rashid, Rushy, 78, 89, 102, 211, 227, 233 Rinkebyswedish. See multiethnic youth language Rudež, Milena, 214, 215 Rushdie, Salman, 3, 18, 84, 112, 199, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 219, 220, 221, 223, 327, 337

Index

S Scheffer, Paul, 116, 228, 263, 264, 265, 268 small language areas, 2, 3, 322, 338 Smith, Zadie, 3, 9, 59, 210, 211 Sonnevi, Göran, 182 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 132 Stitou, Mustafa, x, xii, 102, 117, 226, 227, 232, 234, 263, 271, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281, 327, 336 suburb, 57, 58, 96, 175, 176, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 191, 264 Swedish Academy, 180, 181, 190

T Taylor, Charles, 130 The Latin Kings, 176, 177, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 336

343 transformation, 10, 13, 113, 159, 165, 166, 207, 244, 246, 251, 252 Trotzig, Astrid, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58, 59, 85

U Unigwe, Chika, xi, xii, 143, 144, 283, 285, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 297, 298, 299, 308, 312, 330, 331 Uzun, Mehmed, 149, 150

V Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren, 131, 137

W Walkowitz, Rebecca L., 125, 299, 322 Watteeuw, Jules, 33, 34, 35 welfare chauvinism, 127 Western canon, 185, 200 Wilders, Geert, x, 122, 264, 324, 329 world literature, 3, 103