After Smilla : Contemporary Danish Literature on Greenland, a Canon in the Making?

As a result of its significant international circulation, "Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne" (1992) by Peter Høeg figures among the most memorable works belonging to contemporary Danish literature on Greenland, and its canonization has been promoted by an enduring scholarly consideration. A similar favor – both on a commercial and an academic level – is now being experienced by postcolonial novels that problematize the notions of Danish and Greenlandic identity; in this regard, Kim Leine and Iben Mondrup are two voices that stand out as ‘high-brow’. The matter is different in the case of another recent trend concerning Grønlandslitteratur, namely ‘Greenlandic’ crime fiction: the genre, which has been flourishing from the 2010’s, is often dismissed as popular, and hardly occurs in academic contexts. In my paper, I will address this opposition between ‘canonized’ and ‘non-canonized’ within contemporary Danish literature on Greenland, focusing on the former. In doing so, I will take into consideration two novels by Leine, "Kalak" (2007) and "Profeterne i Evighedsfjorden" (2012), and one by Mondrup, "Tabita" (2020). The three novels have never been studied comparatively, to my best knowledge, and not in the light of canonization dynamics: I will try to fill this gap with the use of Rakefet Sheffy’s standpoints on the concept of canonicity in Polysystem theory. In particular, I will consider the reasons behind the process of canonization, trying to understand what features tend to be privileged in contemporary Danish literature concerning Greenland and Greenlandic people, and whether these trends can be read through the lens of the current relationships between Denmark and Greenland.