Narrating into Europe: Female Migrant Writers’ Voice and Representation

This paper engages with Zadie Smith’s The Embassy of Cambodia and Najat El Hachmi’s L’últim patriarca, which thematise what Stuart Hall has called being “in but not of” Europe. These narratives capture the changes brought to Europe by migration and globalization, embodied by the young female protagonists. As literary works, they capture in narrative form the difficulties of carving out a space for migrant women in contemporary Europe and suggest that engaging with the major challenges coming to Europe today through narrative is one way to stake a position. Only after rewriting the story can female migrants embrace Europe.