ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses autobiography as a genre which has an important role in bringing into discussion issues of changing linguistic borders. Heidi Grönstrand looks specifically at the multilingual traits of Abu-Hanna’s literary language in Sinut (You), a story that portrays the life of Umayya Abu-Hanna, who in the beginning of the 1980s moved from Palestine to Finland. The story foregrounds the narrator-protagonist’s efforts to meet the required language standards in Finnish, but the border between her language use and the norm remains sharp. Because the protagonist’s collisions with the language border are almost comedic, humour becomes an important means by which a demand for a change of attitudes towards interpretations of questions of language and belonging is signalled. The main language of Sinut is Finnish, but by including long passages in English and giving space to the newcomer’s language, which is characterized by creativity and innovation, Umayya Abu-Hanna widens the language repertoire of Finnish literature.
