Theoretical and Textual Approaches to Contemporary Humanitarian Narrative: The Cases of Roberto Saviano’s Gomorra, Aung San Suu Kyi’s Letters from Burma, Jerry Piasecki’s Marie in the Shadow of the Lion and Nadine Gordimer’s The Ultimate Safari

The purpose of this thesis is to describe how some forms of fictional and non-fictional texts can be configured as and within the framework of humanitarian practices. In exploring the definitions and features of humanitarianism and humanitarian literature, the thesis attempts to answer the question of what purpose these texts try to serve. In examining the works Marie in the Shadow of the Lion (2000) by Jerry Piasecki, The Ultimate Safari (1989) by Nadine Gordimer, Gomorra (2006) by Roberto Saviano and Letters from Burma (1996) by Aung San Suu Kyi, we will argue that the scope of these books can be located by analogy to social and political humanitarian practices. Beyond their differences in genre, style and subject matter, these texts share a common feature: they are performative, namely they strive to do things with words. The humanitarian texts discussed in this thesis can be shown to act in the world in order to implement the values proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.