[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/eurrev/v30y2022i1p134-149_10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Remembering Colonialism and Encountering Refugees: Decolonization in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Chunjie
Abstract
This article reads the German writer Jenny Erpenbeckʼs influential novel Go, Went, Gone (2015) as a significant contribution to connecting the current refugee problematic to the decolonization discourse in the German and European public sphere. Along with the public discussions about looted art objects during German colonialism in existing German museums and the emerging Humboldt Forum, the novel registers a shift in the culture of collective memory from a singular focus on the holocaust toward a more inclusive and more connected memory of multiple pasts of violence and atrocity, including German colonialism. This multilayered memory reveals the refugee problem not as something external and unexpected but as something that is deeply connected to German and European history. The novelʼs protagonist Richard, an educated former East German, is the novelistʼs experiment to articulate the urgent need for decolonization as a possible solution toward the refugee problematic. The novel depicts the reality and imagines a decolonized world in which less discrimination, less exclusion, more hospitality, and more acceptance might be possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Chunjie, 2022. "Remembering Colonialism and Encountering Refugees: Decolonization in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 134-149, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:30:y:2022:i:1:p:134-149_10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1062798720000368/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:30:y:2022:i:1:p:134-149_10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/erw .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.