Representations of the African Diaspora in Caryl Phillips' Crossing the River and A Distant Shore
Représentations de la diaspora dans Crossing the River et A Distant Shore de Caryl Philips
Résumé
Properly speaking, the exilic condition cannot be exactly equated with the diasporic condition. Exile encompasses a series of experiences related to a coerced separation with the motherland. The fact is that these do not always entail a diasporic self-definition of the subject. The latter can regard himself/herself as bound to embrace new ethnocultural values if the idea of reconnecting with the original home appears as a forlorn hope. In this case, the urge to come back to one's roots belongs to the realm of utopian fancies and has no direct link with that reality. But the exile may also yearn for a reconnection, considering that he is nowhere at home apart in the original place where he was born. There lies the condition for diasporic belonging: wherever possible, the subject in such predicament will try to rekindle the memories of native upbringing and ethnic kinship. The present paper aims at showing that the tension between origins and location informs the diasporic aesthetics which permeates through two novels of Caryl Phillips that explores a vast array of in-betweenness. Crossing the River presents such situations as challenging yet stimulating opportunities of "sinking hopeful roots" in hostile soil, while A Distant Shore casts a rather dim light on the vagaries lived by African migrants in Europe in our postcolonial era.
