Coastal World Literature: Encounters at the Shores of Europe

Abstract

Shorelines are at the forefront when it comes to the effects of climate change. They are equally a preferred leisure destination for global northerners to seek respite and some sort of ecological reconnection. This article argue that the coast offers valuable insight as a literary site of disruptive encounters. At the coast, economic, ecological, and cultural disparity interweave, and can therefore carry manifold connotations, emotions, and prospects dependent of your vantage point. As such, I argue, the coastal site offers fundamentally different temporalities and experiences depending on the vantage point. To exemplify this point, the article examines contemporary registrations of the southernmost European shore in the wake of the so-called migrant crisis that occurred as the Arab Spring revolutions was met by autocratic pushbacks. Furthermore, the article presents the term ‘coastal world literature’ as a methodology of interpreting literature at the dynamic littoral zone between land and sea. Readings of the novel What Strange Paradise (2021) by Egyptian-Canadian author Omar El Akkad, the collection of poems Mare Nostrum (2019) by Libyan-American author Khaled Mattawa , the novel Til stranden (2017; To the Beach) by Danish author Peter Højrup, and the collection of poems titled Bag bakkerne, kysten (2017; Behind the Dunes, the Coast) by Danish author Peter Clement-Woetmann support the assertion that coastal texts are informed by their position within the world-system. In effect, coastal world literature reveals valuable first encounters of disparity, unevenness, and the range of accompanied affective responses. Consequently, what happens at the shore and how we tell it matters immensely.