Exile, Belonging, and the Post-colonial Imagination in the Novels of M.G. Vassanji and Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abstract

This paper explores the representation of exile and belonging in the novels of M.G. Vassanji and Abdulrazak Gurnah, two prominent postcolonial authors whose works grapple with the consequences of displacement, colonial history, and diasporic identity. Focusing on Vassanji’s The Gunny Sack and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall alongside Gurnah’s By the Sea and Memory of Departure, the paper examines how both authors use fragmented memory, narrative disjunctions, and emotionally exilic landscapes to portray fractured identities in transit. It interrogates how home becomes both a geographic and psychological construct, often lost, imagined, or nostalgically reconfigured. The study highlights how the post-colonial imagination, grounded in historical trauma and personal exile, creates narratives of longing and the search for rootedness in a dislocated world.