Exile Literature: Self- Alienation or Voluntary Exile? Toward a Definition of the Exilic Search for the Self through Literature

By redefining the exilic paradigm as a creative opportunity for the liberation of self and an occasion to celebrate the existential condition of being ―other,‖ this study aims not only to shift the perception of exile away from the archetype of suffering, disorientation, and displacement, but also to explore the spiritual quest of the exilic literary experience of men, who long to re-establish their creative environment and build an aesthetic shelter in a new land. It investigates the change of social and narrative paradigms of exile through a global migration built on a personal exile, seen today as a good condition of personal literary mobility. This paper will focus, then, on the major instances of exilic being manifested in fictional and aesthetic forms of representation of exile in literature.