ABSTRACT
This chapter illuminates the role of readers in processes of linguistic bordering in literary texts. Taking as a starting point that borders between languages, as well as the border between multi- and monolingualism, are not a given but, on the contrary, continually constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed, Julia Tidigs explores the different ways in which contemporary literary texts engage the reader in processes of bordering, where inter- and intralinguistic borders are simultaneously drawn, blurred and challenged. With examples from contemporary Swedish-language literature from Finland and Sweden (Ralf Andtbacka, Alejandro Leiva Wenger and Aase Berg), including poetry as well as prose, Tidigs shows how different kinds of readers with varying linguistic resources are all a part of the creation of the effects of literary multilingualism. Thus, the article demonstrates how contemporary literary multilingualism demands that readers turn from passive “consumers” of multilingual texts into active co-creators of multilingualism, and it reveals how conventional categories of “ideal” versus “linguistically incompetent” readers of multilingual literature have lost relevance with regard to the newest forms of literary multilingualism.
