The Migrant Canon in Twenty-First-Century France

Book excerpt: The Migrant Canon in Twenty-First-Century France explains the causes of twenty-first-century global migrations and their impact on French literature and the French literary establishment. A marginal genre in 1980s France, since the turn of the century “migrant literature” has become central to criticism and publishing. Oana Sabo addresses previously unanswered questions about the proliferation of contemporary migrant texts and their shifting themes and forms, mechanisms of literary legitimation, and notions of critical and commercial achievement. Through close readings of novels (by Mathias Énard, Milan Kundera, Dany Laferrière, Henri Lopès, Andreï Makine, Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Alice Zeniter, and others) and sociological analyses of their consecrating authorities (including the Prix littéraire de la Porte Dorée, the Académie française, publishing houses, and online reviewers), Sabo argues that these texts are best understood as cultural commodities that mediate between literary and economic forms of value, academic and mass readerships, and national and global literary markets. By examining the latest literary texts and cultural agents not yet subjected to sufficient critical study, Sabo contributes to contemporary literature, cultural history, migration studies, and literary sociology.