The Feeling Of Not Belonging

We, from Western societies in general, tend to take for granted a feeling of belonging, which is usually described as being “home”. Where are the geographical coordinates of this home is not really an issue: it can be our actual house or anyplace that makes us feel comfortable. A place where we feel that nothing wrong can happen, a personal sanctuary. We all have that, right?
Wrong. Recently some researchers started to study something called the “feeling of not belonging” and how it affects people’s lives. You can feel like you don’t belong to a place even if you have lived there your whole life. It sounds insane, I know, but it is true. It is a psychological condition that makes you feel as if your “home” is a place out of reach, inaccessible

How do you cope with this inhospitable and even hostile environment?
Well, for some, the answer is literature. That is the main reason why you can find two movements on a considerable amount of the African Literature on the 20th and 21st centuries: the crisis of the belonging and the creation of a place to belong.
The crisis belonging is masterly exemplified by the following poem, “Homecoming”, by Lenrie Peter, where you can find the whole saga: from departure to coming back, where the homecoming turns into home-coming, the feeling of opposition between expectation and reality, past and present, is always present.
(POEM)
The gold times are gone, because the past where they had a place was taken from them, and even when they manage to come back, it is impossible to retrieve this glorious past because that is the place of the present now, and the present is not welcoming. It is the same place, but it is not home anymore. Lily Mabura's, “Man in Ultramarine Pyjamas”, provides and example. (NAME OF THE MAIN CHARACTER), the main character, talks so naturally about what she is seeing, about her daily life and her job, and things like war and massacres do appear on her narrative, as well as her routine and her