Exile: a prolonged living away from one’s country, usually enforced; sometimes self-imposed

1. Exile:a prolonged living away from one’s country, usually enforced; sometimes self-imposed

2. V.S. Naipaul • Born in 1932 on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad to an East Indian family • Received a scholarship to Oxford • Never returned home (Self-imposed exile) • Nobel Prize Winner • Writes without a clear genre

3. Prologue to an Autobiography • Explains how Naipaul wrote his first book • Naipaul has said, “An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally” (qtd. in Morris 13)

4. Vladimir Nabokov • Born in 1899 to a family of wealthy aristocrats in St. Petersburg, Russia • Exiled in 1919 to Crimea then London then Berlin then Paris • Immigrated to the US in 1940 • Famous Novel- Lolita • Often wrote about controversial issues

5. “An Evening of Russia Poetry” • About the virtual impossibility of writing poetry in English as a Russian exile “My little helper at the magic lantern, insert that slide and let the colored beam project my name or any such like phantom in Slavic characters upon the screen. The other way, the other way. I thank you.”

6. Adonis (Ali Ahmad Sa’id) • Born in 1930 in the Latakia region of Syria • Father recited poetry in the evenings • Studied at Damascus University • Joined the Syrian National Guard • Went into exile in Beirut; later went into a second exile in Paris • Fights on two fronts • Currently working on autobiography

7. “A Mirror for Khalida” (Khalida is the poet’s wife) 5. DEATH “After our seconds together time turns back to time. I hear footsteps repeated down a road. The house is nothing but a house. The bed forgets the fire of its past and dies. Pillows are only pillows now.”

8. Cesar Vallejo • Born in Santiago de Chuco, Peru in 1892 • After being unjustly imprisoned, Vallejo left Peru for a self-imposed exile in Europe • Marxist with a strong commitment to social justice

9. Our Daily Bread “You want to knock on all the doors, and ask for who knows who; and then see the poor, and, crying quietly, give little pieces of fresh bread to everyone. And to strip the rich of their vineyards with the two blessed hands that with a blow of light flew off unnailed from the Cross!”

10. Czeslaw Milosz • Born in 1911 in Lithuania • During WWII, he saw first hand the horrors of war and of the Holocaust • In 1950 he was detained in Poland by Polish authorities because of his increasing anti-Communist beliefs • By 1951 he defected to Paris • By the time of his death in 2004, he was again accepted in Poland

11. “Child of Europe” We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day, Who in May admire trees flowering, Are better than those who perished. We, who taste of exotic dishes, And enjoy fully the delights of love, Are better than those who were buried. We from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires On which the winds of endless autumns howled, We, who remember battles where the wounded air roared in paroxysms of pain, We, saved by our own cunning and knowledge. By sending others to the more exposed positions, Urging them loudly to fight on, Ourselves withdrawing in certainty of the cause lost. Having the choice of our own death and that of a friend, We chose his, coldly thinking: let it be done quickly. We sealed gas chamber doors, stole bread, Knowing the next day would be harder to bear than the day before.