At Home, Away from Home

Nobody wants to be a stranger at home, even if one wants to feel at home in an alien country. Celebrated Nigerian author Tanure Ojaide in this memoir recounts his experiences as a Nigerian living and working in the United States. Feeling at home in the United States, but not all the time is coupled with a longing to visit his natal home, as if possessed by the god of nativity, to his home country he goes. Drawn both ways, in a tough tug of war, depending upon where he finds himself—he is caught up in an unending oscillation; now at home and wishing to leave, and soon outside and wishing to be back at home. Often feeling like a stranger no matter how long he has lived and worked in the United States. Not feeling like a stranger he has also refused to blend, wearing materials that make him stand out as an outsider, an African, a Nigerian, a foreigner. There are other differences of beliefs and ideas which do not follow the mainstream, he seems to see things often from different perspective, as a postcolonial fellow, and the others from their metropolitan position of power. He feels he was already formed as a man before his relocation, maybe he is what he is by choice or remain so instinctively.