De taxichauffeur en de karrenman. Contacten en confrontaties van culturele identiteiten in het werk van Abdelkader Benali en Hafid Bouazza

In this paper I analyze how the literary motif of the cart and taxi driver is displayed in works written by the contemporary Dutch authors of Moroccan descent Abdelkader Benali and Hafid Bouazza. I particularly focus on the visions on cultural encounters, confrontations and mediators which these novels, as interesting examples of postcolonial and migrant literature, convey. While Benali seems to believe in the productivity of intercultural merge and identity hybridization, Bouazza shapes highly polarising images of cultural friction, in which the Other often remains fundamentally unknown. However, the works of both authors resist all too simplistic interpretations.