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.