Transcultural Memory of the Nation in Caryl Phillips's A Distant Shore

Abstract

This study argues that Caryl Phillips's A Distant Shore (2003) uncovers Britain's transcultural memory of the imperial past through the journey of the refugee protagonist Solomon/Gabriel from Africa to England. The unlikely encounter between Solomon/Gabriel and Dorothy, a white Englishwoman, in a setting inhospitable to both of them opens up a narrative space to explore the imperial legacy that persists in contemporary racism in Britain. The novel achieves this through a mnemonic narrative strategy based on a fragmented structure with a narrative voice shifting back and forth in time and place. In doing so, the novel contests the idea of the homogeneous nation by drawing parallels between the Middle Passage and refugee flow from Africa. This study will, thus, demonstrate that the novel offers a transcultural perspective on memory and nation by illustrating the cross-border reach of memories that are ignored by national essentialism.