Imagining Borderlands and Remembering Multilingualism: The Adriatic Trilogy of Nedjeljko Fabrio

Abstract

Summary The article analyses multilingual and multicultural diversity in the narrative prose of the Croatian writer Nedjeljko Fabrio. Set in the borderlands of Dalmatia and Kvarner, Fabrio’s novels evoke the lives of people belonging to different ethnic and speech communities – Croats, Italians, Austrians, Serbs, Yugoslavs, or as yet to be defined individuals – from the beginning of the 19th c. until today. Staging ‘weak protagonists’ rather than ‘strong heroes’ and inclining to sociolects and dialects rather than to standard language, his novels create a universe in which the characters’ individual experience counters Croatian national narratives. Fabrio’s narratives suggest that multilingual settings might either lead to conflicts between ethnic groups or to reconciliation between them. Ignoring social rules, individuals join other communities, moving up and down the class ladder. Such mésalliances result in complex genealogical trees out of which a hybrid culture emerges. Through allegorical transfer, the author signals the possibility of reconciliation between different conflicted communities.