''Imaginary Homelands'' is a collection of

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

s and criticism by

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

. The collection is composed of essays written between 1981 and 1992, including pieces of political criticism – e.g. on the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the Conservative 1983 General Election victory, censorship, the Labour Party, and Palestinian identity – as well as literary criticism – e.g. on

V. S. Naipaul Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

Julian Barnes Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with '' The Sense of an Ending'', having been shortlisted three times previously with '' Flaubert's Parrot'', ''England, England'', and '' A ...

, and

Kazuo Ishiguro Sir Kazuo Ishiguro ( ; born 8 November 1954) is a British novelist, screenwriter, musician, and short-story writer. Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and moved to Britain in 1960 with his parents when he was five. He is one of the most cr ...

among others. The title essay – "Imaginary Homelands" – was originally published in the '' London Review of Books'' on 7 October 1982. Comparing his work ''

Midnight's Children ''Midnight's Children'' is a 1981 novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postc ...

'' to other works that draw on diaspora as a central theme, Rushdie argues that the migrant – whether from one country to another, from one language or culture to another or even from a traditional rural society to a modern metropolis – "is, perhaps, the central or defining figure of the twentieth century."

References

Books by Salman Rushdie British essay collections 1992 non-fiction books Works about Indian politics Midnight's Children Works about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict {{essay-stub