Rethinking the multiple meanings of the Mediterranean through Lawrence Osborne’s Beautiful Animals (2017)

Abstract

Lawrence Osborne’s Beautiful Animals (2017) thematizes the arrival of refugees on Europe’s shores and the division of Europe into core and peripheral regions. The psychological thriller tells the story of two young wealthy white women whose daily routines of swimming and sunbathing are interrupted when they meet a Syrian refugee on a secluded beach. In this article, I argue that the novel overlays geographies of forced migration with those of Greek national history, myth, travel, crime, and violence. The murder committed on a Greek island compels readers to examine what might be considered the larger ‘crimes’ of Europe – exclusionary refugee policies, the meddling in Greek affairs, and the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. In doing so, the novel asks us to rethink the multiple meanings of the Mediterranean as holiday destination, deadly outer border, and Southern Other, both intra- and extra-European at the same time.