SOURCE: Kanaganayakam, Chelva. “A Trick with a Glass: Michael Ondaatje's South Asian Connection.” Canadian Literature, no. 132 (spring 1992): 33-42.

In the following essay, Kanaganayakam examines the representation of Sri Lankan culture in Running in the Family, discussing the personal and collective implications of the nation's colonial past for the returning expatriate.

You tell me to pack up my bags and go But where? I turn my face towards Country after country Silently I lip read their refusal What do I call myself? Exile, émigré refugee 

Jean Arasanayagam “Exile II”

In an essay appropriately titled “Going Home,” Zulfikar Ghose reflects on the experience of visiting Pakistan after twenty-eight years, of becoming aware not only of the transformations caused by successive governments but also of deep-seated ambiguities in the task of reclaiming one's past, of establishing a space within one's psyche that promises contentment through its unequivocal assertion of identity. He...