Strangers, migrants, exiles

Abstract

How do we see ourselves? How do we see each other? Questions of identity feature largely in our everyday lives: Advertisements try to sell us things to improve our lives because “they fit us”. A particular set of clothes is turned into a brand which a group of people uses to identify who belongs to them and who does not. In literature, too, questions of belonging somewhere – to a group, to a people, to a nation – are discussed widely, though this is sometimes not apparent from the very outset. In this volume, four essays discuss questions of identity and gender, of identity and nationality in English, Irish and Canadian/Sri Lankan texts ranging from the early nineteenth to the twentyfirst century.