From Home and Exile: A Negotiation of Ideas about Home in Malawian Poetry

Joanna Woods, a student at the Centre of African Studies from 2011 to 2013, has recently had her book published, entitled From Home and Exile: A Negotiation of Ideas about Home in Malawian Poetry. This is based on her Master's thesis, undertaken at CAS.

As the title suggests, the book seeks to understand ideas of home as it is expressed in Malawian poetry. It is based on the poems of five Malawian poets who all touch upon a life in exile. Exilic experiences at home and abroad represent a continuum of dehumanizing political terrain. Being home or in exile is not just about being within or without some familiar terrain called the ‘home’. Rather it is about the sense one has of belonging, of inclusion and exclusion.

Home in Joanna’s book is twofold: it is connected to a certain physical place, at the same time as being an abstraction in people’s minds that is constantly negotiated.

Click here to read what Joanna told us about the inspiration for writing the book, her interest in Malawi and in African literature, and about her process and recommendations of transforming a Master's thesis into a book.

Her book is now available for loan at the library of the Centre of African Studies.