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6
TABUCCHI’S INQUIETUDINE AS THE (UN)BORDERING OF EUROPE
MOONJUNG PARK
mjss3002@hanmail.net
Moonjung Park is a Research Professor at the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies, Kyung Hee
University (Republic of Korea). She received her joint doctoral degree from the University of
Florence, the University of Bonn, and Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV) in 2016. On the theme
of this paper, she conducted research at the Institute of Foreign Literature at Hankuk University
of Foreign Studies from 2020 to 2025, supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea
(NRF). https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2088-1549.
Abstract
The literary trajectory of Antonio Tabucchi (1943–2012) constitutes one of the most profound
ontological interrogations of the concept of the “boundary” (confine) in late 20th-century
European thought. This paper posited that Tabucchi’s literary geography is a “liminal space”
where identity and belonging fundamentally vacillate, instead of a map of fixed territories.
Against the backdrop of hardening political borders, Tabucchi proposed an “anti-geography”
of (un)bordering, driven by Inquietudine, which functioned as a core mechanism for dissolving
Europe’s ontological, geographical, and political boundaries. This study examined Tabucchi’s
process of (un)bordering across three critical dimensions. Ontologically, it analyzed the
deconstruction of the fixed self and linear time through the Game of the Reverse and
“pendulum effect,” exploring a multilayered temporality where the boundary between the
living and dead is annulled. The geopoetic dimension investigated the fictionality of national
borders by defining language as a “portable homeland” and exploring the “shifting West”
through the Azores and India. Politically, the study explored intellectual responsibility,
metaphorically defined as “gastritis,” which interrogates the hidden facets of judicial and
official truths. Tabucchi’s “aesthetics of absence” transcended exclusive nationalism to foster
a new European subjectivity capable of accommodating the Other. Based on the premise that
the earth is merely “on loan,” he demonstrated that we are all fundamentally “strangers to
geography and existence.” This paper argued that Tabucchi’s work proves that constant
wandering on the border constitutes the most dignified form of human existence. This is a
powerful philosophical response to the modern crises of isolation, mapping a universal
subjectivity that stands in solidarity with the Other on a shared, “borrowed” planet.
Keywords
Antonio Tabucchi, Inquietudine, (Un)bordering, Saudade, Aesthetics of Absence.
Resumo
A trajetória literária de Antonio Tabucchi (1943–2012) constitui uma das mais profundas
interrogações ontológicas sobre o conceito de «fronteira» (confine) no pensamento europeu
do final do século XX. Este artigo defende que a geografia literária de Tabucchi é um «espaço
liminar» onde a identidade e o pertença oscilam fundamentalmente, em vez de um mapa de
territórios fixos. Num contexto de endurecimento das fronteiras políticas, Tabucchi propôs
uma «antigeografia» de (des)delimitação, impulsionada por Inquietudine, que funcionou como
um mecanismo central para dissolver as fronteiras ontológicas, geográficas e políticas da
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Thematic Dossier – Geopolitics of Anxiety: Ideology, Identity, and (Un)Bordering in
Contemporary Europe and Asia
September 2026, pp. 6-23
Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe
Moonjung Park
7
Europa. Este estudo analisou o processo de (des)delimitação de Tabucchi em três dimensões
críticas. Ontologicamente, analisou a desconstrução do eu fixo e do tempo linear através do
Jogo do Reverso e do «efeito pêndulo», explorando uma temporalidade multifacetada onde a
fronteira entre os vivos e os mortos é anulada. A dimensão geopoética investigou a
ficcionalidade das fronteiras nacionais, definindo a língua como uma «pátria portátil» e
explorando o «Ocidente em mutação» através dos Açores e da Índia. Politicamente, o estudo
explorou a responsabilidade intelectual, metaforicamente definida como «gastrite», que
questiona as facetas ocultas das verdades judiciais e oficiais. A «estética da ausência» de
Tabucchi transcendeu o nacionalismo exclusivo para fomentar uma nova subjetividade
europeia capaz de acolher o Outro. Partindo da premissa de que a Terra é meramente «em
empréstimo», demonstrou que somos todos, fundamentalmente, «estranhos à geografia e à
existência». Este artigo defendeu que a obra de Tabucchi prova que a errância constante na
fronteira constitui a forma mais digna de existência humana. Trata-se de uma resposta
filosófica poderosa às crises modernas de isolamento, traçando uma subjetividade universal
que se solidariza com o Outro num planeta partilhado e «emprestado».
Palavras-chave
Antonio Tabucchi, Inquietudine, (Des)fronteirização, Saudade, Estética da Ausência.
How to cite this article
Park, Moonjung (2026). Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe. Janus.net, e-
journal of international relations. Thematic Dossier – Geopolitics of Anxiety: Ideology, Identity, and
(Un)Bordering in Contemporary Europe and Asia, VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD3, September 2026, pp. 6-23.
DOI https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0626.1
Article submitted on December 31, 2025 and accepted on February 6, 2026.
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VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 3
Thematic Dossier – Geopolitics of Anxiety: Ideology, Identity, and (Un)Bordering in
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September 2026, pp. 6-23
Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe
Moonjung Park
8
TABUCCHI’S INQUIETUDINE AS THE (UN)BORDERING OF
EUROPE
1
MOONJUNG PARK
Introduction
Antonio Tabucchi’s (1943–2012) literary trajectory constitutes one of the most profound
interrogations of the concept of the “boundary” in late 20th-century European thought.
Tabucchi’s literary geography is a “liminal space” where the notions of identity and
belonging fundamentally vacillate, instead of a map of fixed territories. When European
borders were hardening into new economic and political forms, Tabucchi’s work proposed
an anti-geography grounded in Inquietudine
2
—that is, disquietude. Inquietudine does not
merely represent anxiety but functions as a distinct philosophical category, akin to yet
independent of Freud’s Unheimliche, Fernando Pessoa’s Saudade and Desassossego, and
Nostalgia. It acts as a driving force to dismantle the ontological boundaries of the
European subject. This paper demonstrates that Tabucchi’s Inquietudine is a mechanism
of “(un)bordering,” which dissolves Europe’s ontological, geographical, and generic
boundaries.
For Tabucchi, the concept of the boundary was inherently paradoxical: it was
simultaneously a place of separation and a point of suture. In the preface to the essay
collection, Viaggi e altri viaggi, Tabucchi warned against the “dangerous
misunderstanding” of believing that the ground we stand upon belongs to us. He asserted
that the earth is “on loan,” and just as “everything in life is on loan,” so too is the land:
“But, when all is said and done, I have traveled much, I admit; I have visited
and lived in many ‘elsewheres.’ And I feel it to be a great privilege, because
setting one’s feet upon the same soil for a whole lifetime can provoke a
dangerous misunderstanding, leading us to believe that the land belongs to
us—as if it were not on loan, just as everything in life is on loan”
3
.
1
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research
Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020S1A5B5A16082615).
2
Inquietudine is a quintessential concept that traversed Tabucchi’s entire literary oeuvre. Given its status as a
distinct conceptual term, this paper retains the original Italian expression without translation to preserve its
nuanced meaning.
3
“Ma, a conti fatti, ho viaggiato molto, lo ammetto; ho visitato e ho vissuto in molti altrove. E lo sento come
un gran de privilegio, perché posare i piedi sul medesimo suolo per tutta la vita può provocare un pericoloso
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September 2026, pp. 6-23
Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe
Moonjung Park
9
This primordial transience relegated borders and territories from being objects of
possession to fleeting illusions drawn atop a fluid existence. Consequently, the European
subject within Tabucchi’s narrative assumed a nomadic quality regarding physical space
and its ontological orientation. To capture this dynamic, this study adopted the
paradoxical neologism “(un)bordering” rather than the static noun “border.” The
parenthetical prefix “(un-)” encapsulates a dual dynamism: it presupposes the existence
of the border while perpetually nullifying it. For Tabucchi, the border is not a barrier to
be dismantled but an “ongoing event”—a space that must be incessantly traversed,
transgressed, and rewritten to facilitate the encounter between the subject and Other.
Hence, this study conducted an in-depth examination of the modes of (un)bordering in
Tabucchi’s literature across three dimensions. First, it analyzed ontological
(un)bordering, which deconstructed the fixed self and linear time through the Game of
the Reverse and “pendulum effect” of time. Second, it explored geopoetic (un)bordering,
exposing the fictionality of national borders through concepts of language as a “portable
homeland” and the “shifting West.” Third, it examined political (un)bordering, which
defined the intellectual’s responsibility as a form of “gastritis” and interrogated the hidden
facets of judicial and official truths. This analysis demonstrated how Tabucchi’s aesthetics
of absence opened a new European subjectivity, which transcended exclusive
nationalism, unveiling a new horizon for universal human existence.
Ontological (Un)bordering
Inquietudine Versus Desassossego Versus Saudade
The point of departure for Tabucchi’s literature was the thorough exploration and practice
of the Rimbaudian proposition: “When one writes, the ‘I’ is an other” (quando si scrive
l’Io è un altro; Tabucchi, 2003, p. 12). In Autografie altrui, he defined literature as a
mirror in which the reader discovered their image, explaining that the author dissolved
the subject’s boundaries by thrusting their experience into the “skin” of another.
“Someone made him change skins, once in a lifetime [...] I made him travel
in third class; and though it was only for a few pages, thanks to me, he had
an experience he probably never would have had in his life”
4
.
This “changing of skins” is not mere role-play but an ontological project that refutes the
myth of a unitary, fixed self. Tabucchi termed the phenomenon of a reader recognizing
themselves in a fictional character an “autobiography of others” (un’autobiografia altrui,
[...] fatta da un mio lettore; Tabucchi, 2003, p. 12), annihilating the exclusive boundaries
between author and reader, reality and fiction. This suggested the possibility of a
equivoco, farci credere che quella terra ci appartenga, come se essa non fosse in prestito, come tutto è in
prestito nella vita.” (Tabucchi, 2010, p. 10).
4
“Qualcuno gli ha fatto cambiare pelle, una volta nella vita... Io l’ho fatto viaggiare in terza classe.” (Tabucchi,
2003, p. 12).
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Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe
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10
European subject that was not confined within the identity of a single nation or state and
expanded by appropriating the Other’s experience.
To fully grasp Tabucchi’s deconstruction of borders and formation of a transnational
subjectivity, one must diachronically reconstruct the semantic field formed by his
tripartite philosophical axis: Inquietudine, Desassossego, and Saudade. For Tabucchi,
Inquietudine was an active epistemological stance instead of a pathological symptom to
be suppressed by psychology. It represented the will of a subject that refused to accept
the world as a static structure. As Salvatore Settis identified, this disquietude was the
core of a modern existence that had lost its stable foundation (2012, p. 9). Within this
framework, Inquietudine functioned as a “seismograph” that recorded the minute
cracks—invisible vibrations beneath the surface of history—before they manifested as
catastrophic disasters. In Di tutto resta un poco, Tabucchi noted:
“That illness—that is, a disjointed relationship with Time as a dimension in
which we can no longer dwell, a fractured relationship with History [...]—that
illness seems to me to belong entirely to the twentieth century; and I believe
it has grown steadily, increasing out of all proportion until the present day.
Literature has been, and certainly remains, the most reliable seismograph of
this malaise, and to examine here the shivers of Inquietudine through which
it has manifested itself would take too long; it would deserve a small, portable
encyclopedia”
5
.
In Tabucchi’s epistemological trajectory, Inquietudine acquired a deeper layer of
metaphysical negation through Fernando Pessoa’s Desassossego. The Inquietudine
refined by Pessoa’s heteronym, Bernardo Soares, through the Desassossego of the Book
of Disquiet, transcended a mere orientation toward dynamic exploration. It encompassed
the lack of peace and “absent stillness” situated at the abyss of existence. Tabucchi
adopted the semantic crevice between these two terms as a creative dwelling, carrying
out a “philosophical migration” by transferring his literary base to Portugal, dismantling
the “immunological envelope” of a singular national subject.
Hence, the relationship with the homeland (patria) became an essential key for thematic
interpretation and the stylistic dimension of reading Tabucchi’s work. In a 2009 interview,
Tabucchi famously named Italian his “portable homeland” (patria tascabile; Settis, 2012,
p. 18), suggesting that language was the minimal mental territory that sustained a
writer’s existence beyond geographic borders. However, he confessed to the cracking of
this stable territory by unknowingly beginning to write Requiem in Portuguese and the
subsequent failure to translate the work into his mother tongue, Italian, while staying in
Paris. This illustrated the process through which the intimate boundary of the “portable
homeland” was invaded and restructured by the language of the Other.
5
“Quella malattia, cioè un rapporto sfasato con il Tempo quale dimensione in cui non riusciamo più ad abitare,
un rapporto guasto con la Storia [...], quella malattia mi pare appartenere in pieno al Novecento; e credo che
sia cresciuta via via, aumentando a dismisura fino ad oggi. Di questo malessere la letteratura è stata, ed è
sicuramente il sismografo più attendibile, ed esaminare qui i brividi di In quietudine con cui si è manifestata
sarebbe troppo lungo, meriterebbe una piccola enciclopedia portatile.” (Tabucchi, 2013, p. 20).
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Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe
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11
To contextualize this phenomenon, he cited the experiences of other alloglossic writers:
“the French of Beckett, the English of Conrad and Nabokov, and even the Portuguese of
the Anglophone Pessoa.”
6
Hence, the “linguistic schizophrenia” (schizofrenia linguistica;
Settis, 2012, p. 18) advocated by Tabucchi became a subversive strategy that dismantles
the rigid systems of a single national identity and native tongue, allowing the writer to
reside simultaneously in multiple linguistic and cultural bodies. The confession in the
preface of Requiem of “a language of affection and reflection” (una lingua che fosse di
affetto e di riflessione; Tabucchi, 2014a, p. 7) symbolized the practical completion of de-
bordering—a movement beyond the mere disposal of a singular identity to achieve a
reciprocal encounter between the subject and Other.
While Inquietudine and Desassossego explain the subject’s internal agitation, Saudade
completes the temporal dimension of this movement.
“I view the revisiting of time as a cultural category akin to that of saudade,
which consists of a nostalgia for the future—an oxymoronic concept that
immediately confronts us with a contradiction”
7
.
Tabucchi’s Saudade is not a retrospective regret but a longing for unrealized
possibilities—the vivid presence of absence. This “future nostalgia” prevents the subject
from taxidermizing memory, inducing them to wander within a multilayered time where
past, present, and future overlap. By escaping the “dictatorship of the present,” the
subject becomes capable of sensing the time of the Other that has not yet arrived.
These three concepts form the foundation of Tabucchi’s political and cultural vision of
Europe. While Desassossego sinks into the internal abyss and Saudade swims through
lost layers of time, Inquietudine is the mediating force that connects these affects to the
historical horizon. It resists the contradictions of the present to realize the “future
nostalgia” of Saudade.
For Tabucchi, Europe was not a fixed geographic territory but a “work in progress” that
must continuously accommodate the voices of the Other. Inquietudine imposed an ethical
imperative that pushed the subject out of the comfort of the “homeland” and into the
Other’s “skin.” The transnational subject sought by Tabucchi was a being that constantly
interrogated its boundaries through a state of “wakeful insomnia.” This provided an
epistemological turning point where Europe did not settle into the myth of a singular
lineage but transformed absence and lack into new possibilities for coexistence. Hence,
by tracing the minute tremors recorded by the seismograph of Inquietudine, we can map
a new subjectivity that stands in solidarity with the Other upon a “land on loan.”
6
“Come precedenti cita l’esperienza di altri scrittori alloglossi: il francese di Becket, l’inglese di Conrad e di
Nabokov, e perfino il portoghese dell’anglofono Pessoa.” (Settis, 2012, p. 18).
7
“Io vedo la rivisitazione del tempo come una categoria culturale simile a quella della saudade, che consiste
nella nostalgia del futuro, concetto ossimorico che ci pone subito davanti a una contraddizione.” (Tabucchi,
2022, p. 123).
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Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe
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12
Pendulum of Time and Category of “Having Been”
In the abyss of Tabucchian Inquietudine lies a sophisticated and intricate architecture of
time that rejects a linear worldview. Anna Dolfi identified the “pendulum effect”
8
within
his narrative strategy, signifying an objective vibration generated by forms that
constantly oscillated between points in the past and points of fated return. This vibration
was more than a stylistic flourish; it was a profound existential symptom. It reflected the
ontological struggle of the Tabucchian subject, who refused to reside in the closed
moment of a singular “present” and sought to traverse multiple temporal layers.
Within this epistemological framework, the “present” is redefined as a “porous
membrane” through which the past and future incessantly permeate. As Tabucchi
explicitly stated, “having been” (l’essere stato) places us “in a relationship with the dead.”
This relationship is not mourning in the conventional sense but an active exchange.
9
His
novel Requiem served as the pinnacle of this temporal multilayeredness manifested in
narrative space. Here, the subject facilitated an encounter between the living and dead
within an orderly continuum, creating a unique temporal refraction where “the past
inscribes the future within itself, offering its fulfillment” (il passato inscrive in sé il futuro
offrendone l’adempimento; Dolfi, 2010, p. 11).
This de-bordering is a temporal event. The hierarchical boundary between the living
subject and dead object of memory is erased, and death is elevated from extinction to a
modulated presence. For Tabucchi, the deceased demanded to be heard as “voices
carried by something” (voci portate da qualcosa; Dolfi, 2010, p. 18), generating an
“inclination of the heart” (inclinazione del cuore) that unsettled the solitary self standing
upon the “heart of the earth” (cuore della terra; Dolfi, 2010, p. 11). Therefore, the
journey in Requiem unfolded upon the layer of “fantastic hallucination” (allucinazione
fantastica; Dolfi, 2010, p. 11)—a sophisticated synthesis of memory and the
unconscious—while maintaining the physical locality of Lisbon. This spatial turn, where
fantasy and reality overlapped, became a site for an epistemological experiment that
deconstructed the unity of a singular self and filled the vacuum of the subject with the
polyphony of the Other. Through this narrative strategy of fullness through emptiness,
Tabucchi aesthetically demonstrated how that which had disappeared could reside
permanently within the present subject.
8
“Indubbiamente qualcosa cambia nel panorama italiano a partire dagli anni 80. Dopo i giochi dissacranti e
divertiti/divertenti del Gruppo ’63, le lunghe diatribe sulla fine del romanzo, parallelamente al nuovo piacere di
narrare attivato dalla fortuna presso il pubblico (e non solo) della narrativa sudamericana, gli scrittori sembrano
tornare al romanzo senza la rigidita, la naivete o i sensi di colpa delle generazioni precedenti. I piu interessanti
sono autori avvertiti delle tecniche narrative […] che, rassicurati, si potrebbe dire, dall’ ‘Effetto pendolo’ che
giustifica la ripresa – naturalmente variata - dei personaggi e delle forme, tornano al racconto/romanzo senza
più esibire il distacco dalla scandalosa frase che aveva segnato un’epoca: ”la marquise sortit à cinq heures“
(non è un caso che Tabucchi l’abbia utilizzata qualche volta nel rivendicare il diritto/dovere dello scrittore alla
fedelta a se stesso e alla propria verita). D’altronde i loro maestri non si trovano piu soltanto nella letteratura,
ma nella teoria letteraria, nelle arti figurative, nel cinema.” (Dolfi, 2010, p. 10).
9
“La categoría del haber sido no pone en relación con los muertos […]. Una de mis últimas obras, Réquiem, se
centra totalmente en él.” (Gumpert Melgosa, 1995, p. 153).
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Tabucchi’s Inquietudine as the (Un)Bordering of Europe
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13
Game of the Reverse and Dissolution of the Self
If Inquietudine is the primordial sensation triggering the subject’s internal vibration, the
Game of the Reverse (Il gioco del rovescio) is the decisive methodology that translates
that sensation into narrative practice. This concept functions as a core strategy in
Tabucchi’s poetics to deconstruct the binary conditions underpinning Western ontology.
Tabucchi diagnosed the modern individual as being trapped in an existential predicament,
“condemned to remain always within predictable dichotomies under the Beckettian eye
of a camera” (condannati a essere sempre tra dicotomie prevedibili sotto l’occhio
beckettiano di una telecamera; Tabucchi, 2022, p. 13). This suggests that artistic
“reversal” was the only escape from such a closed structure.
In Tabucchi’s universe, reality was akin to a tapestry. The meticulously woven image on
the surface was determined by the disorderly and chaotic knots on the reverse side; to
approach the essence of truth, one had to trace those hidden knots rather than the
smooth surface.
This realization inevitably led a writer to adopt a narrative stance of “voyeurism and
theft” (voyeurismo e di furto; Tabucchi, 2022, p. 13). To reconstruct the totality of an
inaccessible truth, the writer must “steal” and arrange fragments of reality, with the
author’s identity undergoing an unavoidable subversion. The writer becomes a “new
entity that does not coincide with the writer even if it resembles them” (nuova entità che
non coincide con lo scrittore anche se gli assomiglia; Tabucchi, 2022, p. 10). This
represents a split of the subject, born from the fusion of a “diurnal double” (doppio
diuron) and “multiplied projections” (proiezioni moltiplicate; Tabucchi, 2022, p. 10).
This destabilization of authorial identity—the ontological de-bordering between creator
and creation—was most vividly revealed in Tabucchi’s strategy of “hiding himself in a
Joycean manner” (nascondere se stesso, alla maniera joyciana; Tabucchi, 2022, p. 13),
as analyzed by Dolfi in Zigzag. The act of intentionally hiding behind the narrative was
not a pursuit of anonymity but an aesthetic decision to halt the violent imposition of a
singular ego and allow the multilayered human figures within life to speak for themselves.
Hence, the Game of the Reverse became the pinnacle of an epistemological shift that
revealed hidden truths by negating superficial reality while dismantling fixed authorial
authority to create a polyphonic space where the voices of otherness could freely
intersect.
This ontological dissolution of the unitary self was a foundational catalyst for a radical
rethinking of the European project. Within Tabucchi’s literary geography, Europe was
liberated from the constraints of exclusive nationalism and territorial rigidity, re-
emerging as an “archipelago of pluralities.” By internalizing the mechanism of
(un)bordering, the European subject transcended the myth of a singular lineage,
transforming the continent into a site of perpetual hospitality where the “I” and “Other”
coexisted upon a shared, borrowed land. This transnational subjectivity did not establish
a new center but resided in the tremors of the borders, proving that Europe’s true identity
lay in its capacity to remain an unfinished “work in progress” that continuously echoed
the polyphony of its Others.
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14
Federation of Souls: Identity as an Archipelago
Tabucchi’s discourse on identity established its ontological cornerstone through his
encounter with Pessoa. For Tabucchi, the “I” (Io) was no longer an isolated monolith but
a fragmented collective, a multilayered and incomplete entity that could only be captured
“in profile.”
10
This fragmentation of the self was presented as the primordial truth of
human existence, aligning with his epistemological project to dismantle the modern
illusion of a unitary subjectivity.
Tabucchi’s analysis of Álvaro de Campos, one of Pessoa’s heteronyms, focused on specific
material emblems that symbolized the subject’s de-bordered nature. In the essay The
Automobile, Nostalgia, and the Infinite (L’automobile, la nostalgia e l’infinito), Tabucchi
identified Campos as possessing the “highest metaphysical quotient” (il più alto quoziente
metafisico; Tabucchi, 2015, p. 45). As a naval engineer, dandy, and futurist, Campos
embodied a “geometric nihilism” (nichilismo geometrico; Tabucchi, 2015, p. 45).
Tabucchi decoded Campos’s de-bordered identity through his travel accessory—the
“suitcase”—which became a decisive signifier that defined Campos as a “stranger to
geography and existence” (straniero della geografia e dell’esistenza; Tabucchi, 2015, p.
53).
“[...] a suitcase that contains precious information. It certainly signifies the
journey, the man without frontiers, but also the stranger of geography and
existence”
11
.
Campos defined himself as a “passerby of himself” (passante di se stesso; Tabucchi,
2015, p. 53) and confessed: “I myself, unfortunately, am a thing on loan” (Io stesso,
purtroppo, sono una cosa in prestito; Tabucchi, 2015, p. 50). This recognition of
existence being “borrowed” from the Other carried a fundamental skepticism toward the
ownership and inherent nature of the self. The “terrible, sudden, violent, inconceivable
longing” (smania terribile, repentina, violenta, inconcepibile) he felt while driving a
Chevrolet toward Sintra illustrated the essence of European Inquietudine: a desire to
vanish into the “future road” (strada futura) rather than remaining fixed at a coordinate,
be it Lisbon or Sintra (Tabucchi, 2015, p. 50).
The suitcase was a vessel for the metaphysical weight of a life in transit without
anchorage, symbolizing the existential debt borne by the subject. This was exquisitely
depicted by Campos:
10
“Esiste insomma un contesto nel quale l’io (personaggio e autore), anche se sembra talvolta ricomporsi
segnando un qualche ritorno alla vecchia maniera, lo fa a partire da una situazione nuova, per definizione
frammentata (si pensi in questa direzione, anche per i personaggi più ‘tradizionali’ di Tabucchi, alla tanto spesso
evocata ‘confederazione delle anime,’ o all’io visto solo di profilo nello Stadio di Wimbledon del primo Del
Giudice), [...].” (Dolfi, 2010, p. 10).
11
“[…] una valigia che contiene preziose informazioni. Significa certamente il viaggio, l’uomo senza frontiere,
ma anche lo straniero della geografia e dell’esistenza.” (Tabucchi, 2015, p. 53).
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“I am expiating a crime in a suitcase committed by an ancestor of mine out
of aestheticism. My nerves are on the gallows, twenty by twenty, and I have
fallen into opium as if into a ditch”
12
.
The powerful image of “nerves on the gallows” visualized the internal tension experienced
by a plural being as physical agony. Though the self was imprisoned within the anatomical
limits of a single body, its nervous system expanded centrifugally toward the external
world, maintaining a tension that felt as though it might snap. This organic suffering
reached its peak of subject transformation in the Maritime Ode (Ode Marittima), where
it merged with the mechanical symbol of the “flywheel.” Tabucchi cited this poem to
elucidate the phenomenon:
“The poem is the Maritime Ode, and the object in question is a flywheel.
Precisely because it is so incongruous with the context, so ambiguous in
nature, and situated right inside Campos’s chest, I find it worthy of being
considered beyond metaphor. As such, it deserves a place of honor in the list
of objects I am compiling: ‘I gaze at the steamer from a distance, with a
great independence of soul, and inside me, slowly, a flywheel begins to
turn’”
13
.
Located “inside the chest of Campos,” this rotating wheel drove the subject’s anxiety
mechanism while transforming him into a massive sensation machine. The flywheel
spinning within violated the boundaries between organism and machine, interior and
exterior, redefining the subject as an incessant wave of sensation. These metaphors
embodied the plural self Tabucchi discovered through Pessoa, a powerful visual testimony
to a modern subjectivity floating upon borders, accommodating the Other’s voice and
mechanical vibrations.
This ontological dissolution of the unitary self serves as a foundational catalyst for a
radical rethinking of the European project. Within Tabucchi’s literary geography, Europe
is liberated from the constraints of exclusive nationalism and territorial rigidity, re-
emerging as an ‘archipelago of pluralities.’ By internalizing the mechanism of
(un)bordering, the European subject transcends the myth of a singular lineage,
transforming the continent into a site of perpetual hospitality where the “I” and “Other”
coexist upon a shared, borrowed land. This transnational subjectivity does not seek to
establish a new center but resides in the tremors of the borders. This proves that Europe’s
true identity lies not in its fortified walls but in its capacity to remain an unfinished “work
in progress” that continuously echoes the polyphony of its Others.
12
“Sto espiando un delitto in una valigia commesso da un mio avo per estetismo. Ho i nervi sulla forca, venti
a venti, e son caduto nell’oppio come in un fosso.” (Tabucchi, 2015, p. 53).
13
La poesia è l’Ode marltima e l’oggetto in questione è un volano che proprio perché incongruo al contesto,
per la sua natura così ambigua e perché si trova dentro al petto di Campos, mi pare degno di essere considerato
fuor di metafora e quindi di avere un posto d’onore nella lista di oggetti che sto compilando: “Guardo da lontano
il piroscafo, con una grande indipendenza dell'anima, e dentro di me, lentamente, un volano comincia a girare.”
(Tabucchi, 2015, p. 51).
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Geopoetic (Un)bordering
The most radical form of (un)bordering in Tabucchi’s work occurred at the subject’s level.
Traditional European humanism defined a citizen by borders, language, and soil—a
consistent and integrated self. Influenced by Pessoa’s theory of heteronyms, Tabucchi
deconstructed this unity. He argued that identity was not a possession but a temporary
state, a “thing on loan.” The final, and most concrete, manifestation of this (un)bordering
was geographical. Hence, for Tabucchi, Europe was not a fortress but a fluid space of
transit.
Illusion of Possession and “Life on Loan”
In Viaggi e altri viaggi, Tabucchi deconstructed the nationalistic concept of Heimat and
articulated a philosophy of un-belonging that challenged the nationalistic roots of
European identity. Warning against the illusion of possession arising from a sedentary
life, he defined the “boundary” as an epistemological error. To reside in several
“elsewheres” was a privilege because it shattered the illusion of ownership. He wrote:
“Setting one’s feet upon the same soil for a whole lifetime can provoke a
dangerous misunderstanding, leading us to believe that the land belongs to
us—as if it were not on loan, just as everything in life is on loan”
14
.
This was the cornerstone of Tabucchi’s post-nationalist Europe. If the land was merely
“on loan,” the borders drawn upon it were fictional. This “dangerous misunderstanding”
was the root of the exclusive politics plaguing the continent. By traveling and residing in
several “elsewheres,” the subject shattered this illusion. Hence, for Tabucchi, travel was
an ontological exercise in displacement.
Travel as Ontology: Cavafy’s Ithaca
Referencing Constantine Cavafy’s poem Ithaca, Tabucchi elevated travel to an ontological
status. The destination was irrelevant, but the movement mattered:
“Constantine Cavafy said it in an extraordinary poem titled Ithaca: travel
finds meaning only in itself, in the being of the journey”
15
.
Tabucchi extended this to life, arguing that the primary meaning of life was “to be lived.”
The texts in Viaggi e altri viaggi were described as “islands in a floating archipelago”
scattered “here and there... under different flags,” resisting a singular national identity.
14
“Posare i piedi sul medesimo suolo per tutta la vita può provocare un pericoloso equivoco, farci credere che
quella terra ci appartenga, come se essa non fosse in prestito, come tutto è in prestito nella vita” (Tabucchi,
2010, p. 10).
15
“Il viaggio trova senso solo in se stesso, nell’essere viaggio.” (Tabucchi, 2010, p. 10).
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“Born from the most diverse occasions, always from travels but never from
travels made to then become travel literature, these texts wandered like
islands in a floating archipelago, scattered here and there in the most
disparate locations and under different flags, almost without consciousness
of belonging or identity, drifting in their own way. Collecting them was like
making them a single float, a boat, a canoe; caulking the cracks in the keel,
and from the currents to which they were entrusted, directing them toward
a single direction: the journey of a book”
16
.
Tabucchi’s ontological elevation of travel catalyzed what can be termed “geopoetic
(un)bordering.” By asserting that travel found its meaning in the “being of the journey,”
he deterritorialized the European space. In this geopoetic framework, Europe was no
longer a collection of rigid, sovereign landmasses but a “floating archipelago,” a relational
geography where identities were not fixed by national soil and were constantly in motion.
The act of gathering these island-texts into a “single boat” represented a subversive
move against the hardening of European borders. It suggested that the true European
identity was not in the stability of the “mainland” (the nation-state) but in the fluid
coherence of the “vessel” (literature/language) that traversed these disparate locations.
(Un)bordering occurred here: it acknowledged the “different flags” as historical markers
while nullifying their exclusive power through the shared current of the journey. Hence,
Tabucchi’s geopoetics proposed a transnational subjectivity that viewed Europe as an
ongoing “voyage of a book,” where the land was always “on loan” and the only true
homeland was the shared movement toward the Other.
The Shifting West and Author Sea: Woman of Porto Pim
Tabucchi’s geographical imagination challenged the teleological stability of the “West” by
repositioning its boundaries within the liminal space of the Azores. In Donna di Porto Pim,
he posited a radical redefinition of Western identity: “the West has no end but continues
to shift with us” (l’Occidente non ha termine ma continua a spostarsi con noi; Tabucchi,
2012, p. 13). By situating his narrative beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in a “mare ignoto”
described as “endless and always the same” (mare ignoto [...] senza fine e sempre
uguale; Tabucchi, 2012, p. 13), Tabucchi transformed the Azores from a physical
archipelago into a site of ontological displacement.
These islands were reconstructed as a metaphysical map inhabited by the “gods of the
soul, of feeling, and of passions” (dèi dell’animo, del sentimento e delle passioni;
Tabucchi, 2012, p. 13). This shift allowed Tabucchi to diagnose the deep-seated malaise
of the European psyche. He introduced the “God of Regret and Nostalgia” (Dio del
16
“Nati dalle occasioni piu diverse, sempre da viaggi ma mai da viaggi fatti per poi diventare letteratura di
viaggi, questi testi vagavano come isole in un arcipelago fluttuante, sparsi qua e la nelle sedi piu disparate e
sotto diverse bandiere, quasi senza coscienza di un’appartenenza e di un’identita, a loro modo alla deriva.
Raccoglierli e stato come farne un galleggiante unico, una barca, una canoa; calafatarne le fessure della chiglia,
e dalle correnti a cui erano affidati indirizzarli verso un’unica direzione: il viaggio di un libro.” (Tabucchi, 2010,
p. 9).
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Rimpianto e della Nostalgia; Tabucchi, 2012, p. 14), who governed “the pain for that
which was not and could have been” (la pena per ciò che non fu e che avrebbe potuto
essere; Tabucchi, 2012, p. 15). This served as a poignant emblem of an existential grief
haunting modern Europe—a continent mourning the possibilities it had castrated or lost
through the violent ruptures of its history. However, this melancholy was met with a
darker, more restrictive counterpart: the “God of Hate.” Isolated on an inaccessible
conical island and manifested as “a small, gaunt yellow dog,” this deity symbolized the
dormant hostility and exclusive closure toward the Other, which often lurked behind the
façade of nostalgia.
For Tabucchi, the Azores functioned as a microcosm of European contradiction. The
continent emerged as a tragic space where the “lost universality” of regret and the
fragmented bigotry of hate perpetually coexisted. Hence, the European identity was
revealed as a fractured project: one that perpetually dreamt of ideal integration while
remaining unable to exorcise the internal divisions and ghosts of its past.
Journey for the Shadow and Insomnia: Indian Nocturne
In Indian Nocturne, travel is synonymous with “insomnia.” While Tabucchi distinguished
that “insomnia belongs to the one who wrote the book, travel to the one who did it”
(L’insonnia appartiene a chi ha scritto il libro, il viaggio a chi lo fece; Tabucchi, 2016, p.
9), he assumed the mutual penetration of the two. The epigraph quoting Maurice
Blanchot clarified the essence of this journey:
“People who sleep badly seem to be more or less guilty: what do they do?
They make the night present”
17
.
The narrator searched for his missing friend, Xavier, across Bombay, Madras, and Goa.
Tabucchi provided a concrete “index of places” at the beginning of the book; however,
he confessed:
“I do not know well if this was contributed by the illusion that a topographical
repertoire, with the force that reality possesses, could give light to this
Nocturne in which a Shadow is sought; or the unreasonable conjecture that
some lover of incongruous paths might one day use it as a guide”
18
.
As the doctor in Bombay said, “This is the hospital of Bombay [...] leave aside your
European categories, they are a proud luxury” (lasci da parte le sue categorie europee,
sono un lusso superbo; Tabucchi, 2016, p. 24). In India, the boundaries of Western
reason and logic collapsed. Concrete locations such as the Taj Mahal Hotel or the beaches
of Goa paradoxically amplified the uncertainty of reality. The narrator sought the Other
17
“Le persone che dormono male sembrano essere più o meno colpevoli: che cosa fanno? Rendono la notte
presente.” (Tabucchi, 2016, p. 7).
18
“Non so bene se a ciò ha contribuito l'illusione che un repertorio topografico, con la forza che il reale possiede,
potesse dare luce a questo Notturno in cui si cerca un’Ombra; oppure l’irragionevole congettura che un qualche
amante di percorsi incongrui potesse un giorno utilizzarlo come guida.” (Tabucchi, 2016, p. 9).
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(his friend); however, he eventually encountered his own interiority—the “Shadow.” This
journey was a geographical movement and metaphysical voyage where the boundaries
between self and other, subject and object, dissolved.
The geographical displacement in Indian Nocturne was a geopoetic (un)bordering,
stripping away the rigid veneer of Western rationalism. The epistemological collapse
experienced by the narrator, as he traversed the disorder of India and the sleeplessness
of the night, suggested that the European subject must relinquish its exclusive superiority
and redefine itself within the site of the Other. Here, the “Shadow” symbolized more than
just a missing companion. It represented the “internal alterity” suppressed within the
European ego.
Tabucchi dismantled the physical certainty guaranteed by maps and filled that void with
the wakeful sensation of “insomnia.” This opened a horizon of intersubjective
coexistence, revealing that the subject and Other were inextricably intertwined within
each other’s shadows. Thus, the voyage in Indian Nocturne utilized an aesthetics of
absence to reject the fixity of identity, mapping a new European sensibility capable of
standing in solidarity with the Other beyond established borders.
Political (Un)bordering: The Intellectual as a “Useful Idiot”
“Time Ages Quickly”: Ghosts After the Wall
Il tempo invecchia in fretta, which dealt with Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
explored the temporal fissures and scars of memory that remained in place of physical
borders. In the story I morti a tavola, a former East German intelligence agent wandered
through a reunified Berlin, sensing the absence of the Wall—the vanished great structure.
Monologuing before Brecht’s grave about his history of betrayal and surveillance, he
experienced the sudden intrusion of ghosts from the past, disrupting the boundaries of
linear time.
Furthermore, in Clouds (Nuvole), an officer who served in the Kosovo War dealt with the
invisible contamination of depleted uranium exposure. When the officer taught a young
girl, Isabella, the art of cloud divination, the scene juxtaposed fairytale imagination with
a horrific reality (radiation, death). This served as an indictment of the invisible, lethal
borders (pollution) that war and violence engrave upon the body and nature,
transcending national frontiers:
“On the beach, there was a great silence; the bathers had reached the
restaurant. ‘[The clouds] are fraying into a kind of stracciatella,’ Isabella said
in a low voice, ‘like when the trail of an airplane unravels; now they are
almost gone, how strange, I can hardly see them anymore, you look too.’
The man did not move. [...] ‘The prophecy of the end of all wars was made
two thousand years ago; only no one had read it well until now, and today
we have finally deciphered it on this beach, the two of us’”
19
.
19
“Sulla spiaggia c’era un grande silenzio, i bagnanti avevano raggiunto il ristorante. ‘[le nuvole] Si stanno
sfaldando in una specie di stracciatella, disse Isabella a bassa voce, come quando lascia degli aeroplani si
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Hence, the attempt to read the future of war in the scattering of clouds metaphorically
demonstrated the impact of historical violence on individual lives and the natural world.
“Diabolical Staging” and the Sofri Case
The intersection of literature and justice (or injustice) was the decisive site of
(un)bordering in Tabucchi’s public life. His defense of Adriano Sofri, a prominent figure
of the Italian Left accused of murder, highlighted the tension between official (judicial
verdict) and narrative truths.
The essay collection Plato’s Gastritis (La gastrite di Platone) quoted a chilling phrase from
the initial appellate court verdict against Sofri, Bompressi, and Pietrostefani in 1991.
Judge Laura Bertolè Viale used the expression “diabolical staging,” which was explicitly
linked to the literature:
“This diabolical staging is also, not by chance, the content of two short stories
published in conjunction with the start of the first-degree trial—Leonardo
Sciascia’s A Simple Story—and second-degree trial—Antonio Tabucchi’s Can
the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in New York Cause a Typhoon in Beijing?”
20
.
The judicial system accused the literature, specifically Tabucchi’s work, of trespassing
into the courtroom, interfering by creating a narrative that opposed the state’s version
of reality. Hence, literature had crossed the legal boundary of reality to invade the domain
of “truth.”
“Useful Idiots”
Tabucchi criticized the derogatory categorization used by state power to classify
intellectuals. He quoted the indictment of Ugo Dello Russo (1991), the prosecution
representative in the first appeal case:
“The carriage of victimhood is being pulled by these oxen, by these useful
idiots [the intellectuals]”
21
.
Responding to the prosecution’s belittlement of intellectuals as “useful Idiots,” Tabucchi
inherited Pasolini’s declarative knowledge—“I know” (Io so)—to confront the opacity of
sfilaccia, ora non si vedono quasi più, che strano, non riesco quasi più a vederle, guarda anche tu. L’uomo non
si mosse.’ ‘[...] la profezia della fine di ogni guerra la fece duemila anni fa, solo che nessuno finora l’aveva letta
bene e noi oggi finalmente l’abbiamo decifrata su questa spiaggia, noi due.’” (Tabucchi, 2014b, p. 76).
20
“Questa diabolica messinscena e anche il contenuto di due racconti pubblicati non a caso in concomitanza
con l’inizio del processo di Io grado – Una storia semplice di Sciascia – e di 2° grado – ‘Può il batter d’ali di una
farfalla a New York procurare un tifone a Pechino?’ di Tabucchi. Dalla sentenza del 1° processo d'appello contro
Sofri, Bompressi e Pietrostefani redatta dal giudice a latere, dolt ssa Laura Berto le Viale, 1991.” (Tabucchi,
1998, p. 11).
21
“Il carro del vittimismo e tirato da questi buoi, da questi utili idioti [gli intellettuali].” (Tabucchi, 1998, p. 11).
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power. Citing James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, he argued for a perspective of reversibility
to uncover the hidden facets behind judicial truth.
This emphasized that democracy was an incomplete process requiring constant vigilance
and critique, an attempt to redefine the European citizen’s ethical boundaries. Tabucchi
appropriated the insult to redefine the limits of intellectual responsibility. He rejected the
role of the passive observer (“the ox”) and advocated for the intellectual who interrogated
complexity and sought to “disquiet” rather than provide solutions. This resonated with
his self-definition as a “failed moralist,” emphasizing individual responsibility and ethical
rebellion over dogmatic moral preaching:
“It is difficult to draw a precise boundary. And perhaps it would be a task
suited to an orthodox moralist, while I am nothing but a failed moralist, like
all good moralists, for that matter. In my opinion, we must establish the
following: where do personal responsibilities begin, and where, instead, does
chance end?”
22
.
This political position was made clearer in Settis’s Antonio Tabucchi’s Three Disquiets:
Homeland, Politics, Time. Settis emphasized that the background of Tabucchi’s
engagement in “Politics” lay in his experiences in Portugal under the Salazar dictatorship,
where writers used writing as a tool of resistance. For Tabucchi, the intellectual must
cross the boundary of silence. Hence, in a state of “threatened democracy” (democracia
ameaçada), he “chose not to remain silent” (escolheu não ficar calado) (Settis, 2012, p.
5). This demonstrated Tabucchi’s conviction that the literature must pierce through the
boundaries of political reality, instead of staying within the limits of aesthetic play.
Conclusion
Tabucchi’s discourse on (de)bordering was rooted in a critique of the modern project
known as “Europe.” Historically, European modernity defined itself through the rigid
cartography of the Westphalian system—a process of “border-making” that bifurcated
the world into the rational subject and irrational “other” and demarcated civilization from
barbarism. Hence, European identity functioned as an immunological system, predicated
on the exclusion of the outside to preserve the integrity of the self.
Tabucchi, an interstitial figure who wrote in Portuguese and pursued Indian shadows
amid Lisbon’s mists, systematically disturbed these geographical, cultural, and spiritual
boundaries from within. By utilizing the borders of European exceptionalism as an
epistemological laboratory, he exposed these foundations’ ontological precariousness,
revealing that they were “on loan.” This struck at the heart of the fictiveness of modern
identity, replacing the illusion of permanence with a radical transience.
22
“È difficile segnare un confine preciso. E forse si tratterebbe di un compito adatto a un moralista ortodosso,
mentre io non sono altro che un moralista fallito, come tutti i buoni moralisti, del resto. Secondo me, dobbiamo
stabilire quanto segue: dove hanno inizio le responsabilita personali e dove termina invece il caso?” (Tabucchi,
2022, p. 163).
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However, Tabucchi’s (de)bordering transcended the reconfiguration of Europe’s political
landscape. It evolved into a universal existential condition for contemporary humanity.
From the collapse of modern borders, a planetary solidarity emerged—a communitas in
which all beings shared a primordial sense of “absence” and “lack.” His declaration that
“everything is on loan” served as an ontological caveat to a humanity captivated by the
modern fantasies of ownership and settlement. Consequently, (de)bordering represented
a paradigm shift from the settler’s logic to that of the wanderer (Homo Viator). It signified
an epistemological migration from the isolated island of the “self” toward a polyphonic
archipelago of the “Other.” This “vibration of the border,” distilled from Europe’s
traumatic and specific history, addressed a universal imperative: how the subject might
“share,” rather than “possess,” identity in an era defined by radical uncertainty and
fluidity.
Thus, Tabucchi’s journey of (un)bordering can be defined as an aesthetic soteriology—a
project of secular salvation for restoring the “abyss of the Other” and recovering the
authenticity of existence. Through Inquietudine, he shattered the comfort of static
settlement, forcing the subject into a state of perpetual displacement and compelling the
realization that we were all, fundamentally, “strangers to geography and existence.” For
Tabucchi, the “homeland” (patria) was no longer an exclusive territory bound by blood
or soil but a “portable” space of affection and reflection, constantly restructured by the
Other’s language.
His Game of the Reverse transcended narrative play, converging into an ethical mandate
for the intellectual. It confronted the opacity of sovereign power by meticulously tracing
the knots on the reverse side of official history. Furthermore, by projecting a “nostalgia
for the future” through the paradoxical temporality of Saudade, he summoned the ghosts
of the past into the present, maximizing the density of presence through absence.
The “plural self” and “fluid geography” constructed by Tabucchi created irreparable cracks
within the rigid framework of the nation-state. Within his oeuvre, the self was expanded
through its dissolution; identity was reborn as an archipelagic subject, capable of
reciprocal coexistence only through its own fragmentation. This “aesthetics of absence”
served as a powerful philosophical weapon against the contemporary crises of exclusive
hate and isolation. It offered a profound reflective response on how we may inhabit and
care for one another’s pain on a planet where everything was “on loan.” Tabucchi proved
that the most dignified form of human existence was found in constantly wandering on
the border.
(Un)bordering in Tabucchi’s Europe was an ethical imperative. It was a call, as Barthes
suggested, to recognize the Other within the self. It was a request to accept that we were
all essentially travelers with “nerves on the gallows,” as depicted in Campos’s poetry,
carrying suitcases filled with the weight of aesthetics and the memory of ancient crimes.
We moved toward a horizon that receded as we approached. Hence, Tabucchi’s Europe
was a chronicle of souls in constant motion, bound together by the shared unease and
persistent vibrations.
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References
Dolfi, A. (2010). Gli oggetti e il tempo della saudade: Le storie inafferrabili di Antonio
Tabucchi. Le lettere.
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