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A Permeable Fortress: European Tales of Global Conflict

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Abstract

This chapter analyses short stories by Nicholas Shakespeare, Ian Parkinson and Kamila Shamsie. They focus on borders between nations, their representations and the negotiation of their impact on the protagonists, who all are engaged in missions of border-crossing. The reverberations of global struggles make their presence felt everywhere. Conflicts do not stop at borders but are carried across them and become burdens of memory for those affected, a fact which is visible and pertinent in the stories. The three stories discussed in this chapter make use of alienating effects, transforming factual borders between peaceful and war-torn regions into fluid imagined spaces. Thus, borders are represented as permeable and almost arbitrary.

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Correspondence to Ulrike Zimmermann .

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Zimmermann, U. (2019). A Permeable Fortress: European Tales of Global Conflict. In: Korte, B., Lojo-Rodríguez, L. (eds) Borders and Border Crossings in the Contemporary British Short Story. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30359-4_6

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