Living in and Traversing Cities: Place and Identity in Irene Sabatini’s The Boy Next Door

Abstract

ABSTRACT Movement, or travel, characterises the life of Lindiwe Bishop, the main character and narrator in Irene Sabatini’s debut novel, The Boy Next Door. In this paper I examine how Lindiwe’s movements, and experiences in Zimbabwe’s major cities, Harare and Bulawayo, contribute to her construction of a city-dweller’s and a Coloured identity. I also examine how, as places, the cities are related to her identity formation. In the paper I put forward a social constructionist paradigm of Coloured identity and hold that, as places, Bulawayo and Harare play an important role in Lindiwe’s construction and maintenance of a Coloured identity as well as her identity as a city dweller. Through inhabiting and navigating Zimbabwe’s two major cities, Lindiwe inscribes herself upon these places and constructs and reifies a Coloured identity, thereby highlighting her quest to belong to a racial category and community that offer better prospects and privileges than blackness does.