Top 10 homecomings in fiction
From Colm Tóibín to Margaret Atwood and Yaa Gyasi, these stories reflect on the ambivalent complications of going back to where you’re from
Regret and duty … Saoirse Ronan in the film version of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (2015). Photograph: Allstar/Lionsgate
Regret and duty … Saoirse Ronan in the film version of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (2015). Photograph: Allstar/Lionsgate
CatherineMenon
Wed 7 Apr 2021 05.28 EDT
With lockdown stretching on, one thing my friends and I are quietly admitting to each other is that we feel homesick. Homesick for life as it was, of course, but also for the places we can’t return to any more. The ones we didn’t even realise were still “home”: the countries where we were born, the cities where we grew up, the villages we couldn’t wait to leave.