Tourist literature about the Algarve: The case of Rolf Osang’s fiction

Abstract

Drawing on the theoretical input provided by literature and tourism studies, especially on the concept of tourist literature (Quinteiro & Baleiro, 2019), this paper aims to focus on the novels Süßer Mord [Sweet Murder] (2015) and Algarve-Rache [Algarve Revenge] (2017), by Rolf Osang, a German author who wrote various guidebooks about Portugal, especially about the Algarve. In fact, the Algarve is also the setting of these novels, which can be read as literary guidebooks. Both the narrator and various characters in the novels convey several travel tips provided by a writer who knows the region very well, as a member of a local community of international residents, and who, in the writing process, bears in mind the specific interests of possible readers, namely (potential) visitors, with whom he shares information on places of interest as well as impressions about the locals, their culture, and tourist practices in the region.