Gränsöverskridande i Olga Tokarczuks roman Styr din plog över de dödas ben

• Main Author: Almerud, Eva-Kersti
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Stockholms universitet, Slaviska språk 2018
• Subjects: Olga Tokarczuk; Polish literature; borders; genres; eco fiction; posthumanism; Polsk litteratur; Languages and Literature; Språk och litteratur
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-167802

My aim with this essay was to write about bordercrossing and border changing in Olga Tokarczuk’s literary work with the main focus on her novel Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead. While writing I came to the conclusion that there are very many different sorts of border changing in the novel, for example borders between countries, borders between fiction and reality, indistinct borders, borders between identities and borders in time and space. However, one distinct bordercrossing, that I had not anticipated, emerged very clearly: the border changing when it comes to genre. Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead characterizes as a detective story, but the more you read the novel, the more you realize, that other themes might be more important than the puzzle. This book holds above all eco fiction and posthumanism. By crossing different borders Olga Tokarczuk has transformed an illusory detective story to a nuanced novel about human life on various levels and in different spaces, about human view on animals and about hunters’ disrespect for animals.