Migration is radically changing European ideas of culture and identity. Today the demographic
makeup of Europe can be represented only through complex ethnic cultural and linguistic
cartographies. Yet scholarly research into migration has been largely confined to the political
and social sciences only recently has migration attracted attention from the humanities and
literary studies. Migration and Literature in Contemporary Europe focuses on literature which
deals with the experience of migration often written in a language acquired through migration.
The contributors look beyond the stereotyped discourse of alienation subversion and invasion
too often associated with the subject of migration. The essays discuss theoretical and
methodological approaches to migration literature at times from a comparative and
interdisciplinary perspective and they relate migration to similar phenomena such as the
literature of exile diaspora or postcolonialism. By analyzing a diverse range of texts in many
different European languages and from various cultural contexts the essays reveal new ways of
understanding Europe in transition.
