»Ich war ein Unterwegskind. In der Zugluft des Fahrens entdeckte ich die Welt, und wie sie verweht.«: Räumliche und sprachliche Netzwerke in Ilma Rakusas Werk

In his article Netzwerke. Eine Kulturtechnik der Moderne (2004) Hartmut Bohme examines the theory and history of the network. By means of this he argues for the organizational complexity of nets and their resilient capacity to relate to and communicate with each other, and to thus enter into a process of exchange. The chronotopic nature of nets and their dynamic structure not only allows them to form a synthesis of pluralities but also to tolerate pluralities without unity. While nets do cover areas, they also open up in-between spaces. Such an understanding of the concept of network can be made productive for the comprehension of the intricate literary and cultural interconnections in narratives written by (multilingual) writers as well as for the positioning of the writers within and between their contexts. Ilma Rakusa presents an outstanding example of a multilingual poet whose literature is located in and in-between various literary nets. Undoubtedly, all of them communicate with each other and have a pivotal cultural and linguistic influence on her writing. By considering selected narratives from two of Rakusa's books, namely the autofictional memory book Mehr Meer. Erinnerungspassagen (2009) and the story collection Einsamkeit mit rollendem "r" (2014) the following article applies the concept of network to Ilma Rakusa as a poet as well as to her texts demonstrating its relevance for a better understanding of narratives which destabilize perceptions of a centralized linguistic, literary and cultural system.