Abstract
Migration scholars have divergent views concerning the experiences of migrant characters in foreign nations. The first group of scholars suggest that migrant characters are never settled and because of disarticulating legislations by the host nations, migrants tend to yearn for their return to the mother nations whose environment may be more enabling. The constant nostalgia compels them to erect symbols that remind them of home. Emerging voices nonetheless reject the association of migrancy with nostalgia and return and advocate hybridity as a strategy that would enable migrant characters root themselves away from home. These scholars view migration as an endless journey that supposedly guides the character to their destiny without return. This article extends a second argument that migrant characters embark on multiple symbolic and real journeys if they overcome the allure of return. Using the post-colonial theory, the paper juxtaposes characters who return with those keen on hybridization in Hisham Matar’s The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between (2017) and A Month in Siena (2019). The ideas of William Safran and Homi Bhabha will form a theoretical basis of interpretation.The study is a close textual reading that will proceed through close reading of primary, secondary texts and refereed journal articles.

Author Name: Andrew Nyongesa, Murimi Gaita, Kimani Kaigai

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Keywords: Migration Literature, Hisham Matar, Hybridity, Return

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EISSN: 2581-9526

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