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Quote by Elif Shafak

“He is a man of many lands and many names, but no native soil. Perhaps he carries his hometown on his back, like an ageless turtle.”

Quote by Elif Shafak

Book:Honor
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Honor

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Elif Shafak

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“وها أنت تتخلّصُ ممّا كان يمتنعُ عليك التخلّصُ منه، تلك المدينة، مدينتي، التي توهّمتُ أنّها ستكون حاضرةً للأبد، شديدةَ الرسُوخِ، وعَصِيّةً على الالتهام، فأغذّي أنا أيضًا شراهتي في تدميرِها وهلاكِها. هي تفرُّ وأنا لا أعُودُ”

HometownThe CityThe Townالضاحيةالمدينة
Book:التشهي
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“On that momentous day of my first return to my grandfather’s place in Ojoto after many years of my sojourn in America, I was lost in my thought until a light wind blew across the pedestrian path in a wooded area where I stood, caressing the trees’ leaves and small branches. The stubborn leaves swerved in all directions like untrained dancers learning to strut after consuming palm-wine from large calabash jugs. Looking up, I watched weakened leaves snapped off and gained their freedom from primordial trees. A liberation dance followed in the dense air above me before the leaves set down. Listening to beautiful sounds made by birds converging around me, as if they were singing for the newly liberated leaves, I found myself lost in the wonderment of nature. What I experienced had drawn me back to that exhilarating place for mental respite each time I returned home.”

ImmigrantsHomelandHometownAfrican AuthorsHomecomingNigerian AuthorsIgbo AuthorsNigerian Writers
Author:Fidelis O. Mkparu, 2021
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“Turn to the left looking down Mermod, can you hear the horn in the air, the rolling on the tracks as those boxcars rush bye thru town, look the buds are opening the leaves are spreading and the lawn might need a cut soon, all at the courthouse square, turn and peer back over the other shoulder. You can and still faintly see the hill off in the distance, once a furniture store to the left and a bakery to the right, maybe a trim at Dean Barbershop, or go by, stop and say howdy to Karen and Tony Veralrud at the pharmacy or pick up things at Browns Grocery, that car roof glistens and climbs over the rise to disappear, another day in our little hometown.”

Hometown
Author:levipaultaylor
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“And, my God, was it really not she he met later, far from the shores of their homeland, under an alien sky, in the torrid South, in the marvellous Eternal City, in the brilliance of a ball, to the thunder of music, in a palazzo (it absolutely must be a palazzo), drowned in a sea of lights, on this balcony, wreathed with myrtle and roses, where she, upon recognising him, so hastily took off her mask and whispered: "I am free", and trembling, threw herself into his arms, and with a cry of rapture, they embraced, and in an instant they forgot sorrow, separation, all their torments, the gloomy house, the old man, the dismal garden in their distant homeland, the bench on which, with one last passionate kiss, she had torn herself away from his arms, numb from torments of despair?”

LoveTravelHometown
Book:White Nights
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“I never imagined you'd live there. I'd sooner imagine I'd live there, and I never imagined I'd live there. How is it?" "It's great. It's not the same place we lived when we were kids. I mean, that place is still there, but I don't spend much time there." "I hated living there so much. I always felt so powerless." "We were kids. We weren't supposed to have power." "You had power. You had that car.”

PowerHometownCars
Book:Trust Exercise
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