Klappentext

This book explores the geopolitical and symbolic borders of Europe through the concept of the semi-periphery. Focusing on the North Atlantic island nations, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and Turkey a set of very different social and cultural landscapes the book compares the semi-peripheral aesthetics of Halldór Laxness s and William Heinesen s novels with the semi-peripheral city and borderscapes in works by Orhan Pamuk and Latife Tekin. It offers new readings of texts such as Laxness s The Atom Station and Pamuk s Snow, and provides original readings of works that little has been written about in English, such as Heinesen s The Black Cauldron and Tekin s Swords of Ice. Making use of the theory of uneven and combined development and world systems theory, the book illustrates that the experience of nation-building and capitalist modernisation in the semi-periphery results in a particular realist aesthetic that is remarkably similar across different regional literatures. The book s world-literary method shows that the semi-periphery constitutes a vital and productive area of study both for world literature and for broadening our understanding of colonialism and imperialism on the margins of continental Europe.