LITERATURES IN SEARCH OF STATEHOOD

Abstract

This article examines how the search for statehood determines the literary production in stateless cultures. By focusing on the Catalan case, I argue that literatures without a state are impelled to contribute to the political stabilization of the national community. To put it differently, only state literatures have access to the representation of subjective experiences that are not directly affected by the process of building a state. In stateless literatures, by contrast, the search for statehood becomes a structural determination that forces literary texts to negotiate their own articulation of meaning with this political injunction.