Transnational Literature from Austria: Contemporary Fictions of Migration by Anna Kim, Milena Michiko Flašar, and Verena Mermer

Abstract: Anna Kim, Milena Michiko Flašar, and Verena Mermer narrate the nature and effects of contemporary globalization in unique and compelling ways. This article provides a survey of the various ways in which each writer provides her German-speaking public entry into the stories and histories of countries that are situated geographically and culturally at a remove from the Austrian experience. It focuses specifically on how all three authors, writing in the late 2010s in Austria, construct transnational narratives about migration using contrasting genres and interweaving cross-cultural textual and extratextual elements. With their fictions, all three writers engage in what Zygmunt Bauman has termed "cross-cultural translation" of the contemporary migrant experience. Moreover, their literary practice is intertwined with the formation of transcultural memory as they explore contemporary issues related to migration, such as familial and gender relations and historical and political developments and crises across time and space. The article also explores how these writers connect personal stories with global political and historical events. Finally, the article considers how this "literature of migration," a term coined by Leslie Adelson but developed in opposition to "migrant literature," contributes to a transnational understanding of contemporary migration.