Literature of immigration as a literature of Europe

Abstract

Any understanding of European literature that does not include immigrant literature results in an incomplete vision of literature created in Europe. As immigrant writers have sought to find a place for themselves and their writing, the labels attached to that writing have been crucial. While such debates certainly have to do with the writers themselves and how they seek to have their writing read, they also reflect an anxiety in Europe about what counts as European literature and, not incidentally, who counts as European. To examine these issues, this article takes the example of the work of Franco-Turkish writer Sema Kılıçkaya. In contrast to the usual French fear of communautarisme, which signals for many the fragmentation of society along ethnic and religious lines, the article argues that Kılıçkaya’s writing provides another model for national and European belonging, one that depends, perhaps paradoxically, on sub-national and local belonging – in both the country of origin and the country of settlement.