Luxembourg’s literary landscape is one of great diversity and versatility. And it’s one of the unusual characteristics of this literary field that, since its very beginning, literature in Luxembourg has been multilingual. German, French and Luxembourgish are the predominant languages of literary expression, but this linguistically volatile and creative environment also allows for other languages to assume literary relevance and become an integral part of the cultural landscape.
At the moment, this is particularly obvious in the case of English. In 2022, three of the four submissions which were awarded a prize in the Concours littéraire national, a literary award in which manuscripts are judged anonymously, were in English. And while this might be a surprising peculiarity of that particular year, it is nonetheless a telling example of the receptivity of Luxembourg’s literary environment. The rules of the Concours littéraire national postulate that submissions can be in Luxembourgish, French, German and/or English, and publishers in Luxembourg routinely receive (and accept) manuscripts in more than these four languages.
Luxembourg’s geographic and demographic particularities have meant that the country has always been a literary laboratory, where writers have experimented with the possibilities of language.
A quick glance at the programme of public readings organised at the 2022 Walfer Bicherdeeg, Luxembourg’s celebration of books, writing and reading, adds Italian to this literary melting pot. And a look into Luxembourg’s author’s dictionary, published online by the Centre national de littérature in Mersch (www.dictionnaire-auteurs.lu), reveals a grand total of 44 languages and dialects, all somehow linked to the literary output of the Grand Duchy.
While this may seem like a quirky idiosyncrasy of a small country, this openness to new linguistic and literary cultures is of wider relevance in the 21st century: Academic analysis of the effect of a multilingual society on literary expression allows to highlight developments that can increasingly be seen in other literary cultures.
Luxembourg’s geographic and demographic particularities have meant that the country has always been a literary laboratory, where writers have experimented with the possibilities of language and where matters of multiculturalism and linguistic fusion have been discussed. In combination with a growing interest in political and socio-cultural topics, and with the added perspective of academic interest, this makes for a new contemporaneity in Luxembourgish literature, where a wide array of authors and languages meet around a complex discourse of identity and literary expression