5928922
doi
10.5281/zenodo.5928922
oai:zenodo.org:5928922
Identities Lost and Found? Transcultural Perspectives on Jamal Mahjoub's Road Novel Travelling with Djinns
Stork, Michelle
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
road narrative, travel, transculturality, fluid identity, European memory
<p>This article examines Jamal Mahjoub’s 2003 novel <em>Travelling with Djinns</em> from a transcultural perspective. Drawing on Wolfgang Welsch’s definition of transculturality, I argue that the road trip plays an integral role in how the novel maps 21st century Europe as a heterogeneous construct. While driving from Germany through France to Spain, the main character Yasin adopts a fluid understanding of identity, informed by his experience of being on the move. Simultaneously, the novel conceptualises the European continent as irrevocably shaped by its history of migration, relating the road trip to other historic experiences of travel, migration and exile, some – but not all – of which linked to Europe’s colonial past. Extensive intertextual references also support the novel’s central idea that cultural encounters have shaped Europe for centuries. Since transcultural exchanges tend to be an ever-growing phenomenon in the face of mass migration, globalisation and communication technology, <em>Travelling with Djinns</em> sets out to underscore the continent’s transcultural condition as both historic and ongoing.</p>
<p> </p>
Zenodo
2022-01-31
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
5928921
1644807059.568072
234134
md5:2c49bcf4dda7d388d4e713806c952a39
https://zenodo.org/records/5928922/files/JAN 2022 MASTER_09 stork djinns.pdf
public
10.5281/zenodo.5928921
isVersionOf
doi
Postcolonial Interventions: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies
Vol.VII, Issue 1
240-265
2022-01-31