Das Elend der Anderen

Abstract

Literary depictions of poverty have led to controversial discussions about the poetological, political and social aspects of representation. By focusing on narrated spaces and places in contemporary novels by Rafael Chirbes, Marlene Streeruwitz and Marie NDiaye, this monograph analyses the narrative aspect of social structures as well as literature’s ability to critically engage with its own agency. It demonstrates how literary texts reveal the mechanisms of stereotypical narrations about poverty and the ‘poor’ that have influenced social structures since antiquity by either reproducing or destabilising them.