Introduction

Transnational Identities 309
boundaries of their social space in order to establish a transnational mode of belonging.
This proves difficult and frustrating though, as crossing the borders of
nation-states, even a war-torn one in Anil’s case, is much easier than crossing the
cultural and historical ones that keep them separated from their past. In addition,
crossing into a transnational way of belonging is presented as coming with its own
set of difficulties in Anil’s Ghost, which makes it (the author) Ondaatje’s most critical
book concerning transnational identities.
5.1.1. Dealings with Boundaries
Initially, the characters Anil and Ondaatje appear to be much alike. Their lives
read like ordinary, but rather successful immigration stories. Anil is a renowned
scientist, Ondaatje a famous author. Both seem to lead equally successful, welladjusted
lives in Western countries. Even their immigration stories sound similar.
Ondaatje, having left Sri Lanka at the age of ten for England, later moved on to
Canada, where he stayed permanently (RF 172). Although not much is said in the
text of his feelings towards Canada, he appears at home there with friends and
family (RF 22) and there is no mention of alienation and feeling displaced. 28 As
Danuta Woznialis rightly remarks, it is “his other country and the motherland of
his children” (278). Similarly, Anil left Sri Lanka to study in England and after that
moved on to the United States (AG 145). When asked about her affiliations, she
states, “‘I live here,’ […] ‘In the West.’” (AG 36). Neither one of them appears to
strongly identify with their home country anymore but for different reasons: the
beginning of striking differences between these two characters.
Ondaatje matter-of-factly admits that he had “slipped past a childhood [he]
had ignored and not understood” (RF 22). This neglect appears to have happened
accidentally and is hardly surprising since most of his family crisscrossed the globe
repeatedly: “Gilian stayed in Ceylon with me, Christopher and Janet went to England.
I went to England, Christopher went to Canada, Gilian came to England,
Janet went to America, Gilian returned to Ceylon, Janet returned to England, I
went to Canada.” (RF 172). They were never again all in the same place together
(RF 172). Ondaatje’s social space was thus necessarily disconnected from geographic
space since his family connections occurred transnationally. With the family
scattered, home and belonging appear to be more tied to people than to a particular
place, and since only one sister and the estranged father stayed in Ceylon
the connection to the country and any sense of connectedness to its culture naturally
weakened.
28 There has been much debate concerning the genre of Running in the Family, which I will not go
into here. As already mentioned, the book is a partly fictionalized account, but otherwise hard to
classify and will therefore here only be referred to as ‘text’ or ‘book’. For discussions of the
genre of Running in the Family see Smaro Kamboureli, “The Alphabet of the Self: Generic and
Other Slippages in Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family.”