Narrating Resilience to Crisis in Southern Europe

The unequal impact of the 2008 financial crisis on the different European economies has had as an unwelcome development the reactivation of old stereotypes and resentments among the various European countries. In particular, the crisis seems to have pitted Northern and Southern Europe against each other with unusual virulence, thus hindering the European process towards transnational economic, social and cultural convergence that began after World War II. Considering literature a privileged space for the nuanced and multilayered representation of the complexities of our current postmodern period, this paper studies a selection of novels from Spain, Portugal and Greece emerging after the outbreak of the crisis and offering keen representations of various forms of vulnerability and resilience in these Southern European countries. Through a transdisciplinary approach that combines literary and cultural criticism with philosophical and sociological theory, this paper shows how these novels deploy the damage caused by the European austerity policies—often referred to as ‘austericide’ in Southern Europe—while imagining ways to overcome and prevent the resultant inequality, violence and injustice associated to them. It also questions popular discourses of resilience that legitimize, rather simplistically, the increasing risk and instability of European liquid modernity (Bauman). Finally, it aims to question the role of literature as narrative ethics. Among the works considered in this study are Rafael Chirbes’ En la orilla (2013), Petros Markaris’ Crisis Trilogy of detective novels, and David Machado’s Indice Médio de Felicidade (2013).