Har författaren färg? : en studie av förlags och recensenters framställning av fyra svenska författarskap ur ett postkolonialt perspektiv

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to analyse the sociopoethic construction of four authorships in the Swedish literary field during 2001-2012 from a postcolonial perspective. The analysis address questions as of how non-white authors are presented and packaged by the publishing houses through choice of 7 book covers, and how their debutes are reviewed in daily press. The results from the 58 reviews showcase the ways non-white authors are racialised through othering, placement in a migrant genre and by praising the language in the novels, an inflicting a non-white peritextuality to the authorships. The author as “Other” is ascribed differentiating epithets and an exotic account of their biographies and geographies is put forward, rather than literary accomplishments. The authors are forced into a role representing all non-white migrants and are assumed to write an educational novel authentically reporting from the suburbs. A self-biographical connection is assumed by reviewers and the use of language is described as an uncontrolled force of nature, as a contrast to the normative image of (white) authors’ intellectual writing, hereby questioning the authors’ literary ability. The study argues that this is a hegemonic process of racialisation in the Swedish literary field.