After Africa : the representation of migrant lives in contemporary writing

Abstract

As thousands of Africans cross the Mediterranean to seek lives in Europe, anti-immigrant sentiment spreads and pushes further into mainstream opinion. According to the Washington-based Pew Research Centre, eight out of ten respondents in Greece and Italy want fewer immigrants, as do large groups in France and the UK. Response to the immigrant issue is also highly influenced by ideology, with the right wanting to curtail and the left taking a more relaxed attitude to the increasing numbers of migrants. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 in the US have of course heightened the divides. The intensification of South-to-North migration has become the concern of some major writers, drawing both theoretical work and creative writing. This paper comments briefly on the approach of postcolonial studies towards contemporary migration before going on to five novels portraying migrants journeying from Africa to Europe to explore the literary representation of motives for migration to Europe and the responses of host communities to the migrants.