Metaphor and Materiality

Abstract

To think about the material life of metaphors means to understand space as the projection of the inner self of their occupants. In order to occupy a foreign space one has to negotiate one’s own vision of the world with the landscape one occupies. In the case of migrant writers metaphors of space are especially significant. This paper will discuss the novels Milenijum u Beogradu (Millennium in Belgrade) and Venecija (Venice) by Vladimir Pištalo, and the collection of short stories Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust by Josip Novakovich. Pištalo and Novakovich were born respectively in Bosnia and Croatia and now live and write in the USA and Canada. In Pištalo’s literature places house memories and meditations about the Balkans and Mediterranean, while Novakovic explores a war-torn Balkan world which determines his protagonists’ lives even when they migrate to a better and safer space where they have a fresh start. The aim of this paper is to explore the concept of “home” as the “original shell” (Bachelard) according to which every place in which we dwell has the “meaning of the universe”. In addition, it will tackle Bhabha’s vision of the home of migrant writers in the discursive space of their own literature.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p158