Questioning the Canon

Christine Meyer, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France.

lt;p> "Theoretically sophisticated and historically situated, Questioning the Canon: Counter-Discourse and the Minority Perspective in Contemporary German Literature is a novel and welcome contribution to the study of 'migration literature' in contemporary German letters. By focusing on selected writers of Middle Eastern heritage, Meyer offers an indispensable in-depth analysis of the intertextual themes and strategies of their work and shows how they negotiate their own cultural inheritance with homage to German literary models." Azade Seyhan, Fairbank Professor in the Humanities, Department of German, Bryn Mawr College

"Meyer's monograph is a rare, sophisticated, and beautifully translated treatise that brings conceptual rigor to the complexity of migration literature in Germany since the 1970s, while situating it in broader Germanophone literary questions from the 19th century onward. Meyer's scholarly formation shines through here, showing us how critical vantage points on 'Germanophonie' from beyond German borders can be just as promising as parallel inquiries into 'Francophonie' have been throughout the postcolonial period. The monograph invites a new commitment to literary-historical clarity, as we enter the next half century of Germanophone literature of migration."
David Gramling, Professor of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies, University of British Columbia

"This book is a revelation. For too long, much literary study has been limited by a methodological monolingualism, refusing to acknowledge the creative potential of an emerging translingual poetics. Christine Meyer boldly questions this status quo. She has assembled a remarkable corpus of exophonic, diasporic writing in German, and her sustained focus on canonicity reveals the progressive hybridization of national literatures. The result is essential reading for all those interested in cultural transmission and literary creativity."
Charles Forsdick, James Barrow Professor of French, University of Liverpool, and UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Theme Leadership Fellow, Translating Cultures