A 'spirit' of home and exile: a re-evaluation of Breyten Breytenbach’s Memory of snow and of dust

Abstract

This article notes the emergence of a global consciousness that recognises the need to move beyond well-worn categories of interpretation. In exploring the concepts of home and exile in Breyten Breytenbach‟s novel, “Memory of snow and of dust” (1989), the article examines how fresh perspectives in postcolonial studies – identified as a „spiritual turn‟ – allow one to gain access to new insights into the exilic condition. The author captures and conveys the experience of exile, and envisages through the exile‟s „double vision‟ a more complicated notion of home. The distressing journey into a new awareness of what constitutes home is examined. Furthermore, the article considers the restless, yet regenerative condition of exile that – although characterised by mental anguish – makes possible a more fluid response to spatiality. The renewed interest in (and legitimation of) the spiritual in postcolonial studies lends further insight into an alternative response to the search for a place/ space to call home. This article concludes with an affirmation of the relevance of “Memory of snow and of dust”, as a novel that challenges one to cultivate an expanded awareness – that moves beyond the material – in times during which the overlapping boundaries of home and exile are becoming a global condition.