Abstract
How are migrant writers to address migration without confining their discourse to their condition as migrants? Especially if their definition by that condition in the culture that has ‘received’ them is experienced as a disabling obstacle to their being taken seriously as writers. In his most recent novel, Paravion, published in 2003, Hafid Bouazza, Dutch writer of Moroccan origin, appears to return to the template of his debut collection. Its double setting in a Moroccan-esque country called Morea and the mysterious city of Paravion (Amsterdam) is highly reminiscent of the double setting of De voeten van Abdullah (1996). But whereas De voeten van Abdullah primarily entertained the issue of migration as a tenuous and often barely noticeable thread, Paravion is remarkable for its sustained focus on migration as its primary concern. In Paravion, Bouazza revisits and refashions the pastoral tradition by focussing on the unresolved complications at the core of genuine pastoral thought. Bouazza redefines migration from the physical movement of some to a general movement of desire for the other open to everyone.
Published Version
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