Refugee Memoirs: Kouamé’s Revenu des ténèbres (2018) and Dina Nayeri’s The Ungrateful Refugee (2019) and the challenge of refugee narratives

Abstract

In their introduction to Values of Literature, Hanna Meretoja and Pyro Lyytikäinen argue that ‘little attention has been paid to the ethical relevance of different literary genres and to the very different functions of literary texts that make literature valuable’.1 Literature has several ‘uses’ according to Rita Felski (2008), amongst which are the ‘knowledge’ and ‘shock’ elements insofar as they enable readers to change their perception of the world. Examining what I term ‘refugee memoirs’ as an emergent genre and its uses in enabling readers to interrogate dominant discourses about refugees in the UK, Europe and North America, I argue that refugee memoirs contest right-wing narratives that seek to shape society’s view of asylum-seekers and refugees and enable readers to see refugees' lived experiences through new perspective. Thereby, these narratives also permit a rehumanization of refugees and a comprehension of their losses and positions.