'Unsettled and unsettling others':The 'double vision' of local and global in Breytenbach's later travelogues

摘要

'Unsettled and unsettling others' is Said's (2001. Reflections on Exile) generic description of the metaphysical condition of both the exile and the intellectual. It is a description that applies to Breyten Breytenbach's work, particularly his works after apartheid, with reference to home and exile, to conditions of belonging, migration and nomadism. Such terms suggest the two 'posts' of our times: postmodernism and postcolonialism, terms which, one without the other, are inadequate to account for Breytenbach's literary output, whether in his poetry or - the focus here - in his essays and the genre-mutations in his travel books, in which autobiography,fiction, and political commentary, intertwine as a trait of his distinctive voice.This article illustrates Breytenbach's 'double vision' as engendered by his preoccupation with the home/exile dynamic in his later travelogues, against the background of recent local/ global debates.