Anthropologists, it seems, have coined a term to describe what happens when an emigrant, apparently well adjusted to life in a foreign country, is abruptly consumed by an overwhelming need to go home. They call this individual a ‘sleeper’, after the word used for dormant spies in Cold War novels, ready to respond to a sudden command. Some of these awakened emigrants return precipitately to the countries of their birth, though few remain there, choosing exile once again. Others never make the journey, but prefer to inhabit parallel lives, projecting their pasts onto the screens of their new identities.

Literary Review

Nov 2005

Categories

Caroline Moorehead

Roads to Somewhere

Faith and Hope in the United Nations

His Writing Was Love

Witnesses of the Persecution

To the Bitter End

Occupational Hazards

Justice Defined

Farewell to Arms

Glossed in Translation

‘Save Europe Now’

Both Sides of the Lens

Feeding The Beast

Ravenous for her Roots

Waiting For Glory

Place of Terror

Life & Death in the Susa Valley

The Second Sex

Mayhem All Around

The Great Aid Caravan

Fire In the Blood

Against the Dying Light

Soldier, Soldier

Oncle Sam

A Fearful Freedom

The Garden Party