Grænseforhandlende æstetik

Abstract

The article explores the aesthetic and political potential of multilingual literature to describe and transgress borders. During the past 30 years, a new subgenre of transcultural literature has emerged, in which the author’s multilingual biography is mobilized for aesthetic experiments loaded with subversive power. The article refers to case studies from Denmark, Germany and Sweden: Yahya Hassan’s Yahya Hassan (2013) and Yahya Hassan 2 (2019), Feridun Zaimoğlu’s Kanak Sprak. 24 Misstöne vom Rande der Gesellschaft (1995), and Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Ett öga rött (2003). The works are compared in respect to their ability to create voices that manage to break through the wall of the ghetto, interfering with the political dis- course on themes like migration, racism, and social inequality. The focus of the in- vestigation is on Yahya Hassan.