The Novel and the Borders of Europe: Ben Jelloun's Leaving Tangier and Oksanen's Purge

Frank claims that a new subgenre of European border novels has emerged. He describes the sociological scenario that has helped generate this literary border zone condition from the outside by dividing the European post-World War II era into three, possibly four, distinctive phases, each characterized by a specific politics of the border. He also proposes a series of concepts--border disruption and demarcation, multi, inter, and trans--which can assist in defining the thematic and formal features of this new type of novel, not least in terms of the role of borders.