Exile, Non-Belonging and Statelessness in Grangaud, Jabès, Lubin and Luca: No man’s language

Kerr, G. (2021) Exile, Non-Belonging and Statelessness in Grangaud, Jabès, Lubin and Luca: No man’s language. Series: Comparative Literature and Culture. UCL Press: London. ISBN 9781787356733

Abstract

At least since the Romantic era, poetry has often been understood as a powerful vector of collective belonging. The idea that certain poets are emblematic of a national culture is one of the chief means by which literature historicizes itself, inscribes itself in a shared cultural past and supplies modes of belonging to those who consume it. But what, then, of the exiled, migrant or translingual poet? How might writing in a language other than one’s mother tongue complicate this picture of the relation between poet, language and literary system? What of those for whom the practice of poetry is inseparable from a sense of restlessness or unease, suggesting a condition of not being at home in any one language, even that of their mother tongue? These questions are crucial for four French-language poets whose work is the focus of this study: Armen Lubin (1903-74), Ghérasim Luca (1913-1994), Edmond Jabès (1912-1991), and Michelle Grangaud (1941-). Ranging across borders within and beyond the Francosphere – from Algeria to Armenia, to Egypt, to Romania – this book shows how a poetic practice inflected by exile, statelessness or non-belonging has the potential to disrupt long-held assumptions of the relation between subjects, the language they use and the place from which they speak.

• Item Type: Books
• Additional Information: Funding information: MSCA Fellowship Poetics of Statelessness in France and Europe (704528), Greg Kerr, European Commission.
• Keywords: Poetry, exile, statelessness, non-belonging, nationality.
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Kerr, Dr Greg
• Authors: Kerr, G.
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PB Modern European Languages; P Language and Literature > PC Romance languages
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French
• Publisher: UCL Press
• ISBN: 9781787356733
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © Greg Kerr, 2021
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

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