https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.117
Narrating Estrangement: Exile, Memory, and the Politics of Home in The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between (2016)
SERDZHAN IBRYAM HASAN
Research Master’s in Literary Studies
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
sercanibrahiim@gmail.com
Abstract: Hisham Matar’s The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between portrays exile not merely as physical displacement, but as a continuing condition that reshapes identity, memory, and belonging. Combining personal testimony with Libya’s political history, the memoir follows Matar’s return to his homeland after decades of exile in search of answers about the disappearance of his father under Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. However, the narrative reveals that return cannot fully restore a lost sense of home; instead, it exposes the instability and emotional complexity of belonging itself. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s theorisation of estrangement, this study explores how The Return represents exile through fragmented narration, sensory memory, and shifting temporalities. The memoir’s non-linear structure mirrors the fractured consciousness produced by political violence and displacement, while the unresolved absence of the father becomes the central force shaping the narrator’s sense of self. Through memories, rumours, and family stories, home is reconstructed as an affective and unstable space marked by longing, uncertainty, and loss. By examining the relationship between memory, estrangement, and political exile, this study demonstrates how Matar transforms memoir into both personal testimony and political reflection. Therefore, The Return challenges fixed distinctions between home and away, suggesting that belonging remains an ongoing and unresolved process shaped by displacement, remembrance, and emotional negotiation.
Keywords: Exile, Estrangement, Home, Memory, Belonging, Hisham Matar, Diaspora, Memoir, Fragmentation
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