Herta Müller and Hafid Bouazza. Two Supra-National Writers

Abstract

This article offers a comparative analysis of the work by the German-Romanian author Herta Müller and the Dutch-Moroccan writer Hafid Bouazza and addresses it from a transnational perspective. The research focus lies on their persistent challenging of the interpretation of their work as that of ‘migrant authors’, the place and power they grant to literature, their ‘outcast’ identity (‘nest foulers’ in their so-called ‘host’ community), their poetic use of language, their insistence on ‘detail’ as a metaphor of resistance, and their play with different narrators and ‘Doppelgängers’. Via these strategies, so I will argue, Müller and Bouazza (re)claim literary autonomy. While no other descriptions – such as diasporic, exilic, migrant or ethnic writers – seem to fully apply, this article proposes the use of ‘supra-national writer’ to render justice to the rich and powerful writing and imagery that marks the work of both authors.