Wondering into Country: Dionne Brand’s A Map of the Door of No Return

Abstract:

Drawing on theories of affect and reterritorialization, this article examines Dionne Brand'€™s interrogation of national belonging in A Map to the Door of No Return. Brand's reflections, in Map, on her experiences as a black woman and diasporic subject repeatedly exceed the boundaries of Canada as she explores the possibilities of diasporic community, political community, and artistic community. Nevertheless, as she muses on the possibility of a "country" where she might belong, Brand remains keenly attentive to the country she calls "home," repeatedly engaging in creative, provisional reterritorializations of spaces within the Canadian nation.


This article “Wondering into Country: Dionne Brand’s A Map of the Door of No Return” originally appeared in Canada Reads. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 193 (Summer 2007): 75-92.

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