Writing back or writing off? Europe as 'tribe' and 'traumascape' in works by Caryl Phillips and Christos Tsiolkas

This article takes its cue from Caryl Phillips’s critique of Eurocentric “tribalism” in
The European Tribe and compares it to the ghostly and highly dystopian “traumascape” of Dead Europe by the Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas. It argues that, in contrast to the predominantly black British frames of reference of Phillips’s countertravelogue, Tsiolkas’s depiction of Europe is characterized by a transcultural shift. Scrutinizing this shift, the analysis of Tsiolkas’s novel demonstrates how transgressing generic boundaries and employing narrative unreliability and magical realism not only brings transculturality to the fore, but also creates reader complicity. The article goes on to examine the novel’s use of photography, since it plays a crucial role in depicting Europe as “traumascape” and, together with the novel’s unclear stance on anti-Semitism, invites readers to experience the struggle and tensions accompanying diasporic encounters and the emergence of transnational identities in contemporary fictions of Europe.