Narrative Fiction as a means of Crossing Borders.

This study explores the relationship between fiction narratives and endorsement of multiculturalism and how reading of foreign authors can enrich the reader `s experience and help crossing mental or opinional borders of people. In other words, the aim of this paper is to support reading in general. Education (usually understood as factual information) is commonly used to prevent or eliminate negative effects of xenophobia, racism or any other conflicts between groups of people. Existing work in this field advocates mentioned idea but they do not stress enough emotional side of the problem. Education holds very important role in representation of multiculturalism, on the other hand it very often lacks the emotional aspect of educating which can be found in fiction. The aim of this paper is to display various ways of how (narrative) literature or prose can be useful in bringing nations closer to each other. Literature combines both aesthetic and informative functions and thus explains the cultural background of its author. To know something about a certain entity is only a step to understanding it. Today's Europe needs to function on this kind of principle, it needs to understand Besides political, economical, sociological etc. cooperation, the cultural one represents a very interesting way of how to open borders for our geographical neighbours. The borders that are usually the most difficult to open are those mental ones. Subsequently, all the other questions or conflicts can be dealt with much more easily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]