Politics and Literary Capital in Tomer Gardi's Broken German

Abstract

abstract:The article investigates the solidarity between minority groups as a catalyst of literary capital. Tomer Gardi's novel Broken German (2016) was viewed enthusiastically by literary critics as a bold political statement, since it entertains that immigrants may hold an affinity towards each other based on their exclusion from German culture. However, the novel also alerts us to the hierarchical consideration of immigrants in Germany, complicating the parallel between minority groups that diverge from each other starkly on economic terms. The novel thus forestalls the debates sparked by its publication, which approached its disjointed language as a gimmick and questioned its literary quality.