"This volume ... originated in November 2009 during the two-day workshop '(Multi- )lingual interventions: A comparative view on contemporary migration literature in Scandinavia and the Benelux' organized by Wolfgang Behschnitt and the Department of Nordic Studies at Ghent University"--Page xii.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- “MULTICULTURAL LITERATURES” IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE / Wolfgang Behschnitt and Magnus Nilsson -- MULTILINGUALISM AND DIGLOSSIA IN MIGRATION LITERATURE: THE CASE OF FLEMISH SONGS IN NORTHERN FRANCE / Elien Declercq and Michael Boyden -- LITERATURE IN MULTICULTURAL AND MULTILINGUAL SWEDEN: THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE IMMIGRANT WRITER / Magnus Nilsson -- NEW VOICES WANTED: THE SEARCH FOR A DANISH MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE / Dörthe Gaettens -- EVERY CARPET A FLYING VEHICLE? MULTICULTURALITY IN THE DUTCH LITERARY FIELD / Liesbeth Minnaard -- “THE NETHERLANDS IS DOING WELL. ALLOCHTOON WRITING TALENT IS BLOSSOMING THERE”: DEFINING FLEMISH LITERATURE, DESIRING “ALLOCHTOON” WRITING / Sarah De Mul -- BI- AND MULTILINGUAL ASPECTS IN THE LITERARY WRITING OF TRANSLINGUAL AUTHORS IN SWEDEN / Peter Leonard -- THE RHYTHM OF HIP HOP: MULTI-ETHNIC SLANG IN SWEDISH LITERATURE AFTER 2000 / Wolfgang Behschnitt -- IS THERE OR IS THERE NOT A LITERATURE OF MIGRATION IN DENMARK? / Søren Frank -- THE EMERGENCE OF A DUTCH-MOROCCAN LITERATURE: AN INSTITUTIONAL AND LINGUISTIC EXPLANATION / Marjan Nijborg and Fouad Laroui -- “WE ARE NOT BODIES ONLY, BUT WINGED SPIRITS”: METAMORPHOSIS IN THE WORK OF HAFID BOUAZZA / Henriëtte Louwerse -- ABOUT THE (NON-)EXISTENCE OF “MIGRANT LITERATURE” IN THE NETHERLANDS: OR, WHY MUSTAFA STITOU IS A DUTCH AUTHOR / Yves T’sjoen -- MULTICULTURALISM AND MULTILINGUALISM IN CONTEMPORARY PROSE IN FLANDERS: CHIKA UNIGWE, KOEN PEETERS, AND BENNO BARNARD / Sarah De Mul and Thomas Ernst -- A COMPARATIVE VIEW / Wolfgang Behschnitt , Sarah De Mul and Liesbeth Minnaard -- INDEX.

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Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries presents a ground-breaking comparative approach to the study of multicultural literature. Focusing on the development of migration literature in Sweden, Denmark, Flanders, and the Netherlands, the volume argues that the political and institutional preconditions for the development of ‘multicultural’ literatures are still given within the frame of the nation-state. As a consequence, both the field of ‘migration literature’ and the (multi-)lingual quality of literary texts are shaped differently in each state and in each language area. The volume delineates the development of multicultural literature in Scandinavia and the Low Countries as a function of the specific language situations in these countries as well as the various political, institutional, and discursive contexts. This book not only offers a comprehensive theoretical and methodological analysis of multilingualism and multicultural literature, but also provides overviews sketching the discourse on multiculturalism, language and the development of the literary field in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Flanders. Besides it presents a broad range of in-depth analyses of selected literary texts from each of these countries.