Abstract

In recent years, many narrations of migrant and refugee stories oscillate between novel and autobiography. Sasǎ Stanisǐc ́ is one of the authors who shares his story via his literary texts and stirs between fact and fiction. In the texts that address his personal story – the first one, Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert, framed as a novel, the second one, Herkunft, framed neither as a novel nor as an autobiography but as something in between – Stanišic ́tells readers about a boy who has to flee his country and build a new life as well as of an adult who returns home after several years. He also, more importantly, particularly stresses the possible functions of narrating when it comes to questions of (mis)trust and trustworthiness. In contrast to the uncertainties that the migrant protagonists face on several levels, Stanišic ́uses narrative techniques that create a realm beyond the plot in which trust becomes possible. In Herkunft, these techniques include the use of a so-called ›Spielbuch‹ which gives readers the opportunity to decide how the story ends as well as unreliable narration that – against intuition – creates trustworthiness, binds readers closer to the narrator and therefore creates a compensatory space to the plot.