The mimicry of dialogue: Thomas Lehr’s september. Fata Morgana (2010)

Publikation: Beiträge in SammelwerkenAufsätze in SammelwerkenForschung

Authors

This new reading of the German 9/11 novel September. Fata Morgana (2010) by Thomas Lehr challenges its prevalent interpretation as an East-West dialogue of cultures. Unveiling the narrative’s hitherto neglected unreliability, the chapter argues that rather it displays a mimicry of dialogue which confronts the reader with their own Eurocentricism. Through the analysis of narrative, motivic and intertextual elements, the chapter demonstrates that the cultural approximation is not the result of dialogue but of a European appropriation of the Eastern Other. Giving a special emphasis to German 9/11 cultural responses, it then contextualises Lehr’s manifold conjunction of the September attacks and the theme of mimicry in the wider 9/11 discourse before consolidating the argument with a view of the novel’s historical pessimism.

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Titel9/11 in European Literature : Negotiating Identities against the Attacks and What Followed
HerausgeberSvenja Frank
Anzahl der Seiten30
ErscheinungsortCham
VerlagSpringer International Publishing AG
Erscheinungsdatum01.01.2017
Seiten253-282
ISBN (Print)9783319642086
ISBN (elektronisch)9783319642093
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.01.2017
Extern publiziertJa

DOI