Overview
- Authors:
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Christinna Hazzard
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Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
- Offers an original study of Nordic postcolonial literature
- Contributes to the discussion about the borders of Europe
- Creates a dialogue between two literary cultures that have not yet been explored in tandem
Keywords
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Realism
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Scandinavian Literature
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Literature and Postcolonial Studies
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Modernity
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Semi-periphery
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Nation-building
About this book
This book explores the geopolitical and symbolic borders of Europe through the concept of the semi-periphery. Focusing on the North Atlantic island nations, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and Turkey – a set of very different social and cultural landscapes – the book compares the semi-peripheral aesthetics of Halldór Laxness’s and William Heinesen’s novels with the semi-peripheral city and borderscapes in works by Orhan Pamuk and Latife Tekin. It offers new readings of texts such as Laxness’s The Atom Station and Pamuk’s Snow, and provides original readings of works that little has been written about in English, such as Heinesen’s The Black Cauldron and Tekin’s Swords of Ice. Making use of the theory of uneven and combined development and world systems theory, the book illustrates that the experience of nation-building and capitalist modernisation in the semi-periphery results in a particular realist aesthetic that is remarkably similar across different regional literatures. The book’s world-literary method shows that the semi-periphery constitutes a vital and productive area of study both for world literature and for broadening our understanding of colonialism and imperialism on the margins of continental Europe.
Reviews
In this comparative reading of literature produced from the self-ascribed margins of Europe, Hazzard demonstrates convincing intersections of ideas of national selfhood between geopolitical realities, cultural aspirations and enhanced awareness in the national literatures of Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Turkey. The concept of the semi-periphery reveals a rich potential not only in helping to understand how modernity and Europeanness are intrinsically linked, but also how these terms become contested expressions of assertive semi-peripheral nationhood.
- Lars Jensen, Associate Professor, Roskilde University, Denmark
Authors and Affiliations
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Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Christinna Hazzard
About the author
Christinna Hazzard is a Lecturer in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. She is based in the department of International Relations and Politics where she researches and teaches in the areas of world-literature, postcolonial theory, Scandinavian politics, and popular culture. She has published articles and book chapters on Nordic colonialism, Nordic Noir, and Halldór Laxness.
