Journal of Associated Graduates in Near Eastern Studies

In his contribution, “Homebound Travelers: The Return's Destabilization of Homeland inArabic literature,” Shawheen Rezaei sheds light on the shattered perspective of “the return.” Inhis reading of the riḥ la Rezaei focuses on the way it disorients the traveler — both the characterand the reader. Rezaei’s article suggests that we consider how our perspective as readers issimilarly complicated in our reading of this genre. In the novels he examines, the question of thetraveler’s encounter with the other is nuanced both by the other that the traveler encountersabroad and the other that he encounters once he returns home. When the traveler returns as anoutsider, we are forced to question whether there can really be a return. Ultimately in askingwhat it means to return, the works that Rezaei readsforce us to consider if any return is possible.