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Book Reviewed by:A rich tableau of life as an immigrant abroad, and the challenges of navigating assimilation and difference. Elsewhere, Home draws us ineluctably into the lives of her characters as they forge new identities and reshape old ones.
A young woman's encounter with a former classmate elicits painful reminders of her former life in Khartoum. A wealthy Sudanese student studying in Aberdeen begins an unlikely friendship with a Scottish man. A woman experiences an evolving relationship to her favorite writer, whose portrait of their shared culture both reflects and conflicts with her own sense of identity.
Shuttling between the dusty, sunbaked streets of Khartoum and the university halls and cramped apartments of Aberdeen and London, Elsewhere, Home explores, with subtlety and restraint, the profound feelings of yearning, loss, and alienation that come with leaving one's homeland in pursuit of a different life.
Aboulela excels at giving equal weight not only to the high-stakes drama of cultural differences, but also more focused concepts, like a schoolgirl's nearsightedness in "Farida's Eyes," or a restaurant worker's inability to cook rice, symbols of their cultural displacement. These stories are quiet in ways that highlight tensions of daily life rather than large-scale cataclysm. In the details, we see that these themes aren't about being Sudanese or British specifically, but the simultaneous sense of belonging and alienation familiar to us all...continued
Full Review
(599 words)
(Reviewed by Erin Lyndal Martin).
Leila Aboulela's books, including the story collection Elsewhere Home, illuminate modern life in Sudan, sharing bits of culture and geography alongside the experiences of faith and human relationships. The author joins in the tradition of Tayib Saleh and other fiction writers who've brought the Sudanese diaspora experience into Western view. In recent decades, though, an oppressive political regime has limited the ability of writers in Sudan to share honest narratives of their lives.
In 1989, Omar al-Bashir staged a successful military coup in Sudan, beginning a presidency that lasted until a new coup forced him out in April 2019. Under Bashir, Sudan became an autocratic, single-party Islamic state. One of the many areas this impacted ...
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A.L. Kennedy
Elsewhere, Home is a rich and poignant reflection of a Britain built as ever from multiple perspectives and starting points…These beautifully focused tales of Khartoum, Edinburgh, London, Cairo and beyond are a delight.
