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Diasporic Alienation: Feeling Like A Foreigner In Britain And A Foreigner In Zimbabwe

Poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo and journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge articulate the realities of existing in between two worlds. In Diaspora Blues’, Ijeoma Imebinyuo writes: 

So,

here you are

too foreign for home

too foreign for here

never enough for both

Meanwhile, Reni Eddo-Lodge’s essay Forming Blackness through a screen, found in The Good Immigrant she states: “To be an Immigrant, good or bad, is about straddling two homes, whilst knowing you don’t really belong to either.”

Both writers convey the feeling of displacement I felt during my trips back home. I was born in Harare and I moved to the UK when I was seven years old. During my visit to Zimbabwe earlier this year, I felt foreign in my birthplace. I spoke to a fellow writer, Zoé Samudzi and we shared our experiences. She called what we felt, “diasporic alienation” and that was the perfect description.