TRANSIT

Drawing on Genette’s theory of transtextuality, this paper investigates how intertextuality is used in Lion Feuchtwanger’s Exil (1940) and Abbas Khider’s Der falsche Inder (2008) to design the figure of the exiled writer, who is marked in a threefold manner: by his ability to channel his potencies and potential into artistic productivity; by his capability of achieving self-determination through his writing; and by his willingness to use language as a tool of hope and resistance against oppression and discrimination. The shared intertexts are Rilke’s early writings Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (1904) and Das Stunden-Buch (1905), Benn’s connected poems ‘Der späte Mensch’ (1922) and ‘Nur zwei Dinge’ (1953), as well as similar mythological texts, predominantly Homer’s Odyssey.

Although Feuchtwanger’s and Khider’s novels are usually classified as examples of two different genres—‘exile literature’ in the case of Exil and ‘migrant literature’ in the case of Der falsche Inder—the shared intertextuality of these ‘touching tales’ (Adelson 2000) offers the possibility of overcoming the division between two allegedly different literary genres and foregrounds the transhistorical and transcultural dimension inherent to any writing on the topic of exile.