Precarious Refugee: Self-Optimization and Neoliberal Rationality in Rawi Hage’s <em>Cockroach</em>

In his article "Precarious Refugee: Self-Optimization and Neoliberal Rationality in Rawi Hage’s Cockroach," Shahab Nadimi examines Rawi Hage’s Cockroach as an example of refugee literature in the light of current debates about neoliberal biopolitics and the idea of a new form of life. Refugees, who are neither identified as citizens nor totally as strangers, are forced to compete in unequal circumstances of economic mobility with other citizens, often leaving them in a condition of personal debts, unemployment, and mental distress. Nadimi investigates Cockroach’s depiction of psychological breakdown, suicidal attempts, and metamorphosis as symptomatic of and critical to the neoliberal promissory claim of individual success as well as possible resistance to the biopolitical practices of the neoliberal structures. Finally, Nadimi argues that Cockroach’s narrative of discontent occupies an interstitial space as a transitory mode of resistance to the neoliberal objectification of individuals as bundles of financial obligation and costs.