remarks on issues of modernity often taken for granted, his identity in The Last of the
Sweet Bananas is that of the exile that must make Britain home while return to original
home may be an issue for other times.
Exile and Transnationalism in The Last of the Sweet Bananas
Transnationalism is implicated in the discourse of exile. The assertion stems from the fact
that virtually every discussion of the postcolonial condition is hinged on the tendency of
groups and peoples to transcend their homes/ countries of origin and share a previously
unfamiliar country of destination. With the passage of time such country of destination
begins to offer prospects of exercising rights of citizenship; but more often than not, the
question of the exercise of rights comes with the resolve on the part of the exile to take
the initiative, which, necessary as it is, is realized through an aggressive demand and self-
affirmation. The exile or immigrant does appropriate the other country of destination
while not necessarily making a disavowal of the original home left behind. Put
differently, transnationalism is expressed in the simultaneous straddling of two or more
nations at the same time by an individual without expressing reservations about the claim
to all, or the awkwardness the thought of it conjures. Identity in this context defies fixity
along spatial lines as a kind of transgressive ambiguity and consciousness becomes a
better way of qualifying any individual implicated in this condition. However, this is not
to ignore the fact that the condition, especially in contemporary times, is a telling
indication of humanity’s entrance into an era of global disruption instantiated by the
prospects of accelerated movement of people across spaces (Albert Memmi 2006: 73).
More specifically, with relation to the postcolony it is important to remark that
transnational identities are fast becoming a defining trope of its citizens. The disruption
which usually results in the contemplation of movement to the West points to the fact of
the failure of modernity’s project itself. This is because when critically considered,
transnatioanalism, even with the most charitable of analyses, strikes one as riddled with
many contradictions. In other words, beyond the celebratory aura usually identified with
the concept especially in the way it departs from the arbitrariness of the unilateral place-