Kafka’s failing migrant and spaces for integration in contemporary German and American literature

Abstract

In this comparative study of Kafka’s The Man who Disappeared, Ozdamar’s Mother Tongue and Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, I examine the complex processes of integration and exclusion of the figure of ‘the migrant’ that are at work in each of these texts. In Kafka’s novelistic fragment the space for integration is gradually undone—a process that is suggested in the title of the novel itself: “The Man who Disappeared.” Ozdamar and Mengestu, on the other hand, construct spaces where the possibility of integration is not ruled out. To be sure, Mengestu’s African immigrant, who runs a small store in a gentrifying American city, resembles Kafka’s protagonist in many respects. However, unlike Kafka’s two-dimensional character, who remains radically marginalised, Mengestu’s immigrant develops a strong sense of belonging, asserting a place of his own in his American-Ethiopian diaspora. The claim for ownership is also prominent in Ozdamar’s stories, albeit differently. The Turkish-German author Ozdamar works through the linguistic complexities of the migrant’s many tongues, forming a linguistic synthesis—or ‘third language’—that opens up other spaces for integration. This contrastive comparison will shed new light on different literary dealings with the figure of ‘the migrant,’ distinguishing the uncompromising failure of Kafka’s migrant from more “successful” integrations through developments of third (linguistic) spaces in contemporary literature.