The Return of the Natives: Infernal Paradise in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and Romesh Gunesekera’s Heaven’s Edge

Résumé 0

This paper investigates the ideological tensions and ambiguities that are inherent in narratives of return. Unlike immigrants Kiran Desai’s Biju and Hamid Mohsin’s Changez who are beholden to myths of ‘Mother India’ / ‘Mother Pakistan’ as their dreams of El Dorado have drowned, Sri Lankan expatriates or refugees have a more ambivalent affiliation with their native country as they struggle with the scars of ethnic war between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Both Michael Ondaatje and Romesh Gunesekera address the issues of identity, belonging and survival as their main protagonists return to their native land. In both novels, the narrators are marginalized as Westerners. Anil’s Ghost explores the tensions between Western human rights law or the duty to intervene and the Sri Lankan government’s efforts to derail all UN inquiries, which it regards as neo-colonial intrusions. In Heaven’s Edge, Marc’s (re) discovery of his roots is compromised by his touristic discourse. Both heterogeneous works resist pigeonholing along simplistic binaries that buttress communal violence. On their personal journeys the two narrators are changed as they relinquish their role as peripheral observers and engage with the victims. They encounter paradigms of regeneration through human agency and reconciliation with their environment and their past.