Divided Selves in Exile: Third Space in Louis de Bernières’ Birds Without Wings

Abstract

Set in the early 20th century, Louis de Bernieres’ novel Birds Without Wings focuses on the divided identities negatively influenced by wars, exile, and migration in southwestern Anatolia just before the decline of the Ottoman Empire and foundation of Republican Turkey. Based on the decision of population exchange, a great number of non-Muslim people were deported to a foreign land (Greece), away from the newly defined borders of the new Turkish Republic. In his novel Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernières scrutinizes this social phenomenon and questions the significance and validity of the notions such as race, religion, ethnicity or language in the nation building process. The author deplores the loss of multicultural lifestyle in a utopian, idyllic Anatolian town with the displacement of Greek and Armenian residents. The multicultural structure of society penetrates into the formal and narrative features of the novel, such as multiplicities in viewpoints, a mixture of genres, different languages and the use of nicknames for protagonists. Intercultural encounter provokes hybridity and leads to the emergence of multiplicities in society. However, the exchange of population puts an end to the long-established multicultural society structure, a dynamic cultural exchange and negotiation. The use of multiple voices, multiple characters, narrative techniques, and multiple languages in fact celebrates the hybridity and plurality of worlds throughout the novel. Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the in-between third space challenges the formation of cultural identity in hybrid societies, simultaneously embracing multiplicities, pluralities, and hybridity. The writer signals to the existence of such a harmonious heterogenous society in Anatolia in the past time and laments for the loss of such an idyllic lifestyle reigned by mutual love, respect, tolerance and cooperation. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate how Bhabha’s conceptualisation of “third space” finds a place in the lives of divided selves in Louis de Bernières’ Birds Without Wings and to demonstrate how it deconstructs the binary thought and essentialist identity in intercultural encounters.