Abstract

HARWOOD, Rebecca. Worlds Within Worlds: Stella Benson’s ex-centric search for home. Ex aequo [online]. 2011, n.24, pp.123-137. ISSN 0874-5560.

Benson spent most of her adult life abroad and in this paper I propose to use the textual material of her travel books, The Little World (1925) and Worlds Within Worlds (1928), collections of the sketches she wrote during her time in America, Hong Kong and China, to focus on Benson’s personal politics of location in exile. These two books very clearly demonstrate Trinh Minh-ha’s concept of identity as a «product of articulation», where «[Identity] lies at the intersection of dwelling and travelling» (Trinh Minh-ha, 1994: 14). Benson’s travel sketches exemplify an enabling concept of travel and exile, where ‘homelessness’ is a state or space that embodies creative and utopian potentiality.

Keywords : travel; ex-centric; exile; home; homelessness.

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