Dysfunctional fatherhood in cultural liminality narratives: a study of contemporary Swedish literature

Abstract

The research aims to identify the structural features and cultural meanings of the father figure in contemporary Swedish prose on migration and identity. Drawing on Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novel “One Eye Red” (Sw. “Ett öga rött”, 2003) and Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s novel “Can You Say Shibboleth?” (Sw. “Kan du säga schibbolet?”, 2008), the article examines the crisis of paternal authority in conditions of cultural liminality and its influence on the protagonists’ identity formation. Within the phenomenon of dysfunctional fatherhood, two narrative models are identified: the father experiencing a collapse of social status and the father undergoing a crisis of symbolic recognition despite external success. The scientific novelty lies in the introduction of the synthetic concept “dysfunctional fatherhood in cultural liminality narratives”, which allows viewing the “weak” father as a systemic symptom of a rupture in the intergenerational transmission of cultural codes. The research findings establish that the crisis of the father figure, determined by migration experience, consequently leads to a deformation of children’s socialization. Furthermore, the type of dysfunction shapes different scenarios for identity search: the loss of public authority provokes an active but destructive rebellion against society in adolescents, whereas a crisis of private authority amidst external success generates a state of passive “suspension” and existential uncertainty.

Research materials

1. Хемири Ю. Х. На красном глазу // Иностранная литература. 2007. № 3. Швеция XXI: новые голоса.
2. Bakhtiari M. Kan du säga schibbolet? Stockholm: Ordfront, 2008.
3. Khemiri J. H. Ett öga rött. Stockholm: Bonnier Pocket, 2016.

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Author information

About this article

Publication history

• Received: January 12, 2026.
• Published: January 29, 2026.

Keywords

• культурное пограничье
• дисфункциональное отцовство
• гибридная идентичность
• постколониальная теория
• современная шведская литература
• cultural liminality
• dysfunctional fatherhood
• hybrid identity
• postcolonial theory
• contemporary Swedish literature

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© 2026 The Author(s)
© 2026 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)