ABSTRACT I analyze Iraqi author Hassan Blasim’s “The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes” and “The Dung Beetle,” two short stories that are centrally concerned with the border crossing experiences of Iraqi immigrants and refugees residing in Europe. In both stories, Blasim’s protagonists try to suppress past trauma and forge new identities rooted solely in the present. And yet their trauma resurfaces in the space of dreams and in the narrative itself, manifesting itself as literary madness. I employ the term “contamination” to describe how the experience of border crossing leaves its mark, altering the body, mind, identity, and narrative of the border crosser. Intentionally referencing the racism, xenophobia, and religious bigotry that inform the myth of national purity and its perceived defilement by border crossers, “contamination” is inherent to the creation of so-called “diaspora spaces,” where multiple subjectivities intersect and, however contentiously, co-exist.

中文翻译：

---

一个魔法戒指和一只粪甲虫：哈桑布拉西姆噩梦般的叙述中被污染的边界

摘要 我分析了伊拉克作家哈桑·布拉西姆 (Hassan Blasim) 的“卡洛斯·富恩特斯的噩梦”和“粪甲虫”，这两个短篇小说主要关注居住在欧洲的伊拉克移民和难民的过境经历。在这两个故事中，布拉西姆的主人公都试图压制过去的创伤并塑造完全植根于当下的新身份。然而，他们的创伤在梦的空间和叙事本身中重新浮现，表现为文学上的疯狂。我使用“污染”一词来描述过境经历如何留下痕迹，改变过境者的身体、思想、身份和叙述。故意提及种族主义、仇外心理和宗教偏见，这些偏见为民族纯洁的神话及其被过境者所感知的玷污提供了依据，