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Paper short abstract

The relation between literature and anthropology was a core theme in Eriksen’s work. Although he early-on stressed the necessary differentiation between the two, he eventually experimented with ‘ethnographic fiction’, introducing his distorted alter ego Tommy as a vehicle for (self-)exploration.

Paper long abstract

Among Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s more than sixty books, his two novels are rarely mentioned, and even discarded. The first one, the ambitious Siste dagers heldige (2000) was generally badly received, not to say scorned, by literary critics (Hemer 2012). The second novel, Veien til Barranquilla (2002), was hardly received at all, but the few reviews were appreciative of its literary quality. Yet, Thomas did not proceed on the novelist track. But the relation between literature and anthropology was a core theme in his work, and in our collaboration over more than 30 years. A keen reader, often inspired by literature, he warned aspiring anthropologists of too willingly adopting literary ambitions and inadvertently confirming the mocking epithet as ‘failed novelists’ (Eriksen 1994:194.) Yet, in our discussions, he later on admitted to having nuanced, if not abandoned, his earlier rather categorical standpoint about the necessary fundamental differentiation between literature and anthropology (Hemer 2020:4). And in his last major project, which partly also was our last collaboration project, he even embarked on exploring the trans-genre ‘ethnographic fiction’, introducing his alter ego Tommy as a semi-fictional character (Eriksen 2023; 2024). The distorted third-person Tommy can be regarded as a late comment in the margin to the still on-going ‘Writing Culture’ debate and arguably adds an interesting subject-position – a vehicle for (self-)exploration – to Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s entire work.