Life Between Cultures and Languages: The Stories of Goran Vojnović and Widad Tamimi

Abstract

This article explores literary narratives by contemporary authors who write about multiculturalism in the European space and are socially critical. We are particularly interested in those narratives that have an authentic impact and bring a critical response to the stereotypes of the Other as they are present in public discourse. Goran Vojnović and Widad Tamimi, among others, tell stories of life between several cultures and languages. In his debut book Southern Scum, Go Home! Goran Vojnović tells the story about the lives of descendants of immigrants in Slovenia, and in Yugoslavia, My Fatherland about the memory of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. In Roses of the Wind, Widad Tamimi, a writer of Palestinian-Jewish origin, tells the story of her Jewish family’s former exile during fascism in Italy and the exile of a Palestinian family who fled to Jordan because of war. Taking the examples of authors such as Feridun Zaimoğlu, the life stories of the protagonists of the selected prose works are placed in a broader transnational context of literary creation. The aim of the paper is to observe the changing perception of literature, which today cannot be fixed by national, religious, linguistic or cultural belonging, but is a transnational system in which authors from a wide variety of cultures and languages work. This is also reflected in the authenticity of literary language, which has become a multitude of linguistic idioms and cultural backgrounds.