Discontinuous homecoming and community-forging storytelling in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea
Costanza Mondo
University of Turin, ItalyCostanza Mondo is an MA student of Modern Languages and Literatures at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Modern Cultures of the University of Turin, Italy. Her undergraduate thesis, entitled “Uses of Satire in A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift and The Cockroach by Ian McEwan,” is concerned with satiric devices and the ties of the genre of satire with the historical context. She is interested in Postmodernism, Postcolonial literature, and Ecocriticism.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2236-4580
Abstract
In By the Sea, written by Abdulrazak Gurnah in 2001, the theme of the homecoming is of paramount importance. The trajectory of the main characters’ movement is fragmented and incomplete in the sense that they end up feeling at home in a foreign country rather than choosing their birthplace, Zanzibar. By referring to selected scenes from Gurnah’s narrative, the present paper aims to analyse the images of home portrayed in the novel and the discontinuous character of the homecoming it depicts. In addition, the role of storytelling is investigated so as to show its importance for two related processes: homecoming and community-forging.
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University of Turin, Italy
Costanza Mondo is an MA student of Modern Languages and Literatures at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Modern Cultures of the University of Turin, Italy. Her undergraduate thesis, entitled “Uses of Satire in A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift and The Cockroach by Ian McEwan,” is concerned with satiric devices and the ties of the genre of satire with the historical context. She is interested in Postmodernism, Postcolonial literature, and Ecocriticism.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2236-4580
