National Identity and Sense of Belonging of the Yemeni Migrants in Ethiopia: A Critical Analysis of Abdul-Wali’s They Die Strangers
Keywords:
National identity, sense of belonging, Yemeni migrants, Mohammad Abdul-Wali, They Die StrangersAbstract
This paper examines the national identity and sense of belonging of the Yemeni migrants in Ethiopia as portrayed in Mohammad Abdul-Wali’s They Die Strangers (1971). Using the theoretical discussions of Adnan Zarzour, Raymond Williams, Ernest Renan, Kamaludin Rifaat, Gastanteen Zureiq, Timothy Brennan and John McLeod, the research attempts to uncover the issue of nationhood in Yemen at the period of the advent of September Revolution in 1962. In addition to that, it sheds light on the loss of identity and living in between spaces that the Yemeni migrants experienced in Ethiopia. The paper concludes that They Die Strangers is one of the Yemeni novels that express the internal feelings of the Yemenis who lived inside and also for those who lived outside the country at that time. It also reflects the suffering of the Yemeni migrants who could not live amongst their own nation in Yemen because of the backward regime of the imam. In contrast, when they left their homeland to Ethiopia, they felt alienated there. They lived in between spaces; they neither belonged to Yemen nor to their land of domicile.
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