The mimicry of The Lizard Man: Dariusz Muszer's narratives of migration in the (post-)colonial context
Abstract
Dariusz Muszer's novel Der Echsenmann [The Lizard Man] (2001) creates the figure of a male protagonist who is not able to escape from the underprivileged position reserved for an immigrant in the German society of the 1980s and 1990s. This marginal status causes a reaction in the form of postcolonially coded, poetic (and occasionally violent) revenge on representatives of the structures he holds responsible for his social degradation. The article proposes a reading of Der Echsenmann within a post-colonial framework, focusing on the discourse of dissent and cultural negotiation through the conceptualization of space (Foucault 1986; Augé 1995), as well as through the concept of hybridity outlined by Homi K. Bhabha (1994).
This paper has been withdrawn.