Sverigeskildringar i samtida svenska romaner: debatten om fenomen och begreppen "invandrarlitteratur" och "invandrarförfattare".

Jankowska, Paulina

Sverigeskildringar i samtida svenska romaner: debatten om fenomen och begreppen "invandrarlitteratur" och "invandrarförfattare".

Abstract

During the last decade a new trend called ’imigrant literature’ (’invandrarlitteratur’) written by young ’immigrant writers’ (’invandrarförfattare’) has developed in Sweden. Both of these terms generate homogenization, dichotomization and ethnicization thus limiting the author’s artistic liberty and devaluaing the literary values of the text. Integrating with the foregin ’system’ and other problems of immigration are no longer the subject of discussion in this literature, nor is the desire to find specific identity in a new environment. The main aim of this article is to reconstruct the literary image of Swedish society in six modern day novels written by young writers. The analysis covers the following authors: Marjaneh Bakhtiari, Marcus Birro, Zbigniew Kuklarz, Hassan Loo Sattarvandi and Andrzej Tichý. The were all born in Sweden or have lived in the country for at least twenty years. Their debut books delighted the critics who appreciated their high literary values, fully mature language and style as well as the uncompromising nature of social criticism and the authors’ sensitivity to present day phenomena.