Homesickness, Failed Transnationality, the Conservatism of Belonging, and Salman Rushdie

Abstract

The Satanic Verses as a text that dramatizes the failure of a transnational belongingness and the conservatism of place and belonging; it is a celebration of migrancy and cosmopolitan identity. Focusing on the tensions between the homeland and the migrant self, this paper intends to highlight a depiction of homesickness in the novel’s major migrant characters to show how they fail to negotiate an idea of a new cosmopolitan space that not only accommodates the migrant on equal terms with the city host, but also one that insists on the possibility of a community of different peoples living and working together harmoniously. The question of how the novel fares in the context of transnational globalism and the immigrant’s claim to citizenship rights and fair treatment is also considered.