The Dialectics of Exile in Dinaw Mengestu’s Children of the Revolution

Abstract

Exile constitutes a pivotal and recurrent motif in literature. Its atavistic depiction indicates that it had the capacity the provide solace, succour or security to individuals who were confronted with some existentialist conditions and challenges, and were able to overcome the situations and have a new, positive experience altogether. In contemporary times, however, artistic depiction of exile, which is basically linked with migration among third-world subjects, indicates that it is debilitating experience, characterised by rancour, anguish and regrets. It is depicted in an avalanche of literary works as a precarious experience wrapped in ambivalences. This is the thrust of this study, which examines the multifaceted variants of exile in Denaw Mengestu's Children of the Revolution, with a view to broadening its conceptual framework, scope and dimensions in contemporary literary discourse. The study is a qualitative one and adopts the interpretative design. The tropes deployed are the diaspora, nostalgia, identity negotiation, and return migration. Exile, the study finds, engenders and intensifies solitude and friendlessness- an exasperating condition that results in despair, depression and delusion on the part of the exile. As an enervating experience, exile is capable of killing an individual's vision, prospects and aspiration and impinges on the exile's yearning or wish for self-actualisation and fulfilment. Thus, rather than providing the much-needed reprieve, exile engenders inferiority complex and intensifies frustration, retrogression, nostalgia and all-round displacement.