New wave of literature from the Danish-German borderland

Abstract

During the period from around 2012 to 2020, there has been a significant increase in the number of novels that take place in the Danish-German borderland, South Jutland and Schleswig. The very specific Danish-German borderland-themes addressed by these novels are subject to an examination in this article. Theories will be put forward to explain this very growth in number of books that describes history, culture and regional features in an area with a longstanding territorial dispute between Denmark and Germany.

Throughout, the novels express an analysis the special mix of culture between Danish and German. The struggle for Danishness and the assault of the Prussian and German authorities on Danish culture in the “Prussian era” from 1864 till 1920 Schleswig plebiscites plays an important role in quite a few of the modern novels. The perspective is primarily Danish and only rarely German. However, in the last ten years in particular, the most important Danish borderland writers have drawn a new and very nuanced image of the borderland.