Spatial Dislocation and Temporal Longing in M.G. Vassanji’s the Magic of Saida

Abstract

In The Magic of Saida (2012), M.G. Vassanji’s compelling diasporic story asks questions of the spatial displacement and temporal nostalgia of its half-Indian, half-African-Canadian protagonist, Dr. Kamal Punja, who returns after a self-imposed exile of 35 years to Kilwa, Tanzania, to investigate ghostly phenomena. The novel maps a tripartite spatial geography of Kilwa, Dar es Salaam and Edmonton, alongside three psychically charged temporal geographies, past, enchanted childhood, present, volatile postcolonial experience, and future, material success and emotional dislocatedness. Saida is a symbol of the intangible and unachievable homeland, a temporal figure of what Kamal gave up when he became worldly. This paper posits that using Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of cultural liminality and Avtar Brah’s idea of “homing desire”, Vassanji reveals spatial dislocation in a state of perpetual temporal suspension, which is a condition where the diasporic subject is neither in the past nor the present. This temporal fragmentation is accentuated by the use of two narrators Kamal and Martin Kigoma, and history and personal memory are both built up at the same time without ever coming together into a coherent whole. The novel ultimately posits spatial return as possible, but not temporal return, which ultimately, like Saida, vanishes with a vengeance