The infinite longing for home : desire and the nation in selected writings of Ben Okri and K.S. Maniam

• Main Author: Lim, David C. L.
• Format: Book
• Published: Editions Rodopi 2005
• Subjects: PR English literature
• Online Access: http://library.oum.edu.my/repository/1018/

This is a groundbreaking study of Ben Okri's and K.S. Maniam's literary problematization of home' in relation to subjectivity and the nation within and beyond the context of Nigeria and Malaysia. Drawing on Lacan, Zizek, Laclau and Mouffe, and weaving through history, politics, philosophy and literature, this book critically examines the motives and means by which peoples forced to live together in a country love and hate each other, and overlook the truths about themselves, their actions and beliefs. It looks into why some embrace heterogeneity and open-endedness while others are internally compelled to over-identify passionately with their religion and race, and to posit theirs as irreducibly distinct from and superior to others'. The Infinite Longing for Home also traces through Okri's and Maniam's writings a way out of today's political aporia, a path to the re-creation of a new society humbled & unified by the recognition of its participation in flawed humanity.