Abstract
In this comparative study of Kafka’s The Man who Disappeared, Özdamar’s Mother Tongue and Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, I examine the complex processes of integration and exclusion of the figure of ‘the migrant’ that are at work in each of these texts. In Kafka’s novelistic fragment the space for integration is gradually undone—a process that is suggested in the title of the novel itself: “The Man who Disappeared.” Özdamar and Mengestu, on the other hand, construct spaces where the possibility of integration is not ruled out. To be sure, Mengestu’s African immigrant, who runs a small store in a gentrifying American city, resembles Kafka’s protagonist in many respects. However, unlike Kafka’s two-dimensional character, who remains radically marginalised, Mengestu’s immigrant develops a strong sense of belonging, asserting a place of his own in his American-Ethiopian diaspora. The claim for ownership is also prominent in Özdamar’s stories, albeit differently. The Turkish-German author Özdamar works through the linguistic complexities of the migrant’s many tongues, forming a linguistic synthesis—or ‘third language’—that opens up other spaces for integration. This contrastive comparison will shed new light on different literary dealings with the figure of ‘the migrant,’ distinguishing the uncompromising failure of Kafka’s migrant from more “successful” integrations through developments of third (linguistic) spaces in contemporary literature.
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Notes
If not stated otherwise, all translations are mine.
With reference to Freud, Werner Hamacher argues that culture itself is always a transition towards its own decay.
The complex field of migration though makes this distinction difficult, as the boundaries between the different forms of migrants are fluid (cf. Bade et al. 2010, p. 21f.)
This is, however, not to generally discard post-colonial readings of literature beyond the cultural-historical specificities of the concept’s origin. Post-colonial German studies are in fact in the making (see for example Lubrich 2006, pp. 59–60). And indeed Kafka’s and Özdamar’s work provide grounds for more “flexible” post-colonial references. Kafka showed great interest in colonial issues; exemplary is his text “Ein Bericht für eine Akademie” or “A Report to an Academy”). Furthermore, Özdamar’s engagement with labour migration has invited readings against the backdrop of post-colonial theory (see, for example, Minnaard 2012). However, it remains difficult to resist the “homogenizing or totalizing tendencies in postcolonial theory” even if, as Goebel writes, it “serves as a heuristic tool that, despite cultural differences is employed to elucidate textual details” (Goebel 2002, p. 188).
Published under the title Children of the Revolution in England.
For a closer engagement with the reversed American Dream that Karl Rossmann undergoes see Wasihun (2010, pp. 117–135).
This vastness of America is especially highlighted in the novel’s last fragment with the incipit “Sie fuhren zwei Tage” [“They travelled for two days”].
The Dergue is an abbreviation for the socialist regime that ruled Ethiopia during the Red Terror, or Qey Shibir, of the late 1970’s.
This irony can also be read as a criticism of capitalism, see Olopade (2008).
All translations of Özdamar’s texts are mine.
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Wasihun, B. Kafka’s failing migrant and spaces for integration in contemporary German and American literature. Neohelicon 42, 463–479 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0296-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0296-z