Migrant in Limbo : An investigation into the dehumanisation of the migrant figure during migration and integration as shown through the short stories of Hassan Blasim

Sammanfattning: In 2000, Iraqi-born film director, poet and author Hassan Blasim fled Iraq to escape persecution for his films on the forced migration of Kurds by Saddam Hussein's regime. After travelling through Europe for four years, he was granted asylum in Finland. It was in Europe that many of his short stories were published, including Majnūn Sāḥat Al-ḥurrīya (2015) which offers a haunting critique of the war and post-war experiences of migrants fleeing Iraq and settling in Europe. This thesis is an investigation of how the migrant figure is dehumanised during the migration trajectory from displacement to integration through three of the short stories in Hassan Blasim’s Majnūn Sāḥat Al-ḥurrīya: Šāḥinat Barlīn (The Truck to Berlin), Al-ʾaršīf Wa-al-wāqiʿ (The Reality and the Record) and Kawābīs Kārlūs Fuwantis (The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes). This thesis uses close reading in order to highlight how the migrants in these short stories are depicted as ingenuine asylum claimants who cheat and perform to gain entry to the West and as terrorists or animals who are a threat to the cultural norms of the receiving nations. In this thesis, it is argued that it is these depictions and assumptions which lead to their negative treatment and societal rejection.