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THE STATIONARY EXILE

THE STATIONARY EXILE beauty, but the situation on the ground is messy. Here, once upon a time, people intermingled, moved from one village to another in search of fertile land, a fertile wife, a bustling marketplace, crisp sea air. But when fates are being determined elsewhere, there is no movement; no borders are crossed. The border crosses over the villages, and one morning the villagers get up and turn on the radio to discover they are speaking the wrong language across the breakfast table. Anxious words are uttered in the language of the dispossessed. They are now in the minority. The new lines and colors on the map do not convince the villagers on the ground. Nor do the lines and colors, as they age, convince the villagers’ children or their children’s children. The new lines and colors are perceived as wounds, the scars not confinable in the territory of skin, not limitable to the borders of a single life. 1 The contours of my own life and land have been free of dispossession, at least of this kind. I was born in the United States, whose borders never contract. But I have grown fascinated (obsessed might be a better word) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

THE STATIONARY EXILE

Debeljak, Erica Johnson
Common Knowledge , Volume 14 (2) – Apr 1, 2008
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
© 2008 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
0961-754X
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-2007-088
Publisher site
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Abstract

beauty, but the situation on the ground is messy. Here, once upon a time, people intermingled, moved from one village to another in search of fertile land, a fertile wife, a bustling marketplace, crisp sea air. But when fates are being determined elsewhere, there is no movement; no borders are crossed. The border crosses over the villages, and one morning the villagers get up and turn on the radio to discover they are speaking the wrong language across the breakfast table. Anxious words are uttered in the language of the dispossessed. They are now in the minority. The new lines and colors on the map do not convince the villagers on the ground. Nor do the lines and colors, as they age, convince the villagers’ children or their children’s children. The new lines and colors are perceived as wounds, the scars not confinable in the territory of skin, not limitable to the borders of a single life. 1 The contours of my own life and land have been free of dispossession, at least of this kind. I was born in the United States, whose borders never contract. But I have grown fascinated (obsessed might be a better word)

Journal

Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2008

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