One Degree Away From Place

Ha Jin, William Dalrymple, Pico Iyer and Kwame Appiah form the influences around the research methods and creative explorations of this essay. It responds to existing Marxist presumptions surrounding migrant and travel writing. It explores the question of a writer’s perspective when influenced by place, culture and travel. One Degree Away From Place is a reflective essay that explores the possibility of shifting points of view in a writer’s experiences. It manifests a re-framing of ‘otherness’ that departs from traditional postcolonial models of disorientation. It articulates and contextualises the minority migrant Other’s own re-conception of Other through experiential movements of travel and relocation. By marrying a positive disembeddedness within Kwame Appiah’s cosmopolitanism with the practicalities of a lifestyle of regular travel, the essay deconstructs the minority perspective and argues for a universal globalism. The essay was commissioned by Dr. Adnan Mahmutovic of the University of Stockholm, editor-in-chief of Two Thirds North, a reputable literary journal in Sweden. Co-contributors include Ocean Vuong, Mohsin Hamid and Colin Dodds.