Local Rooms with a Cosmopolitan View? Novels in/on the Limits of European Convergence

The aim of this essay is to examine how novels negotiate European integration and, hence, how they contribute to re-imagining European culture and Europeanization, of which they are an outcome. My results may not be valid for other genres and cultural artefacts. However, my restriction to the novel is justified on the grounds of testing Benedict Anderson’s statements about this genre and its capability to represent imagined communities. This test is carried out from a cosmopolitan viewpoint. My analysis comprises three parts. First, I will briefly review Ulrich Beck’s theories on cosmopolitanism. Second, I will approach Europeanization as reflected in new ways of reading, which I call “cosmopolitan reading”. And third, I will examine three novels –Joaquín Lorente’s Ciudadanos de la Tierra.com, Àngel Burgas’ La fi d’Europa, and Tim Parks’ Europa – that negotiate the process of integration. Finally, I make some concluding remarks on the perspective these novels express on European convergence