Moving towards east. Global journeys to home in postcolonial fiction

The volume deals with the shift of the traditional concepts of “home” and “migration” towards the notions of “homecoming” and “reverse migration” in Black British literature. The aim is to consider Black British literature through the investigation of the effects of globalization on the literary and personal experiences of migrants of first and second generation. In particular, the focus will be on the phenomenon of “return migration”, according to which diasporic subjects decide to leave the UK and come back to their ancestral homelands. From this perspective, the volume analyses stories of homecoming of first-generation migrants, as well as the more recent accounts of the second generation. The focus is on migrants’ communal search for a community of belonging in both the adoptive and the original country; their relationship with the notions of space and place, as well as with the new global metropolises; and the reconfiguration of the concepts of home and homeland, with the resulting desire of homecoming. The research eventually suggests a new tendency, according to which migrant flows are reversing towards East. In this light, the definition of “reverse migration” is proposed to indicate English people who decide to migrate to the former British colonies, especially to India. The theorization of this new tendency will be supported by the analysis of three “reversed” migration’s stories of white British characters.