The Slow Refugee: Transit as Stasis, Narrative Ethics, and Level Telling Fields

The slow humanities, this article argues, can make valuable contributions to the study of migration narratives. A slow take on literary representations of refugees and migrants has two distinct but related dimensions. On the one hand, the figure of the slow refugee introduced here challenges theories of migration which emphasize movement. On the other hand, the slow approach to literary representations of forced migration focuses on various forms of narrative empowerment. My readings of the novel What is the What (2008) by Dave Eggers and Parwana Amiri’s work My Pen Won’t Break But Borders Will: Letter to the World from Moria (2020) demonstrate how collaborative and allied forms of storytelling help restore narrative agency and authority, moving beyond the exemplary, documentary, and ambassadorial functions of vicarious storytelling. Instead of speaking on behalf of others, or even worse, for others—the default case in many conversations on migration—the literary representations of refugees discussed in this article emphasize the need to tell and share stories with others, for the benefit of everyone. In this sense, they help establish a level telling field, initiating a debate on the terms and conditions of fair conversation on forced migration.