Ithaca

When the harsh voices of the country you despise offend your ears, you are overcome with astonishment: what more is expected of you? Have you not paid your debt in full? Exile has turned you into a completely different being, who has nothing to do with the one your fellow countrymen once knew: their law is no longer your law: their justice is no longer your justice: no one awaits you in Ithaca: as anonymous as any passing stranger, you will visit your own dwelling and dogs will bark at your heels…
…you are the king of your own realm and your sovereignity extends to the furthest reaches of the desert… you will make camp in their garbage dumps and refuse heaps as you carefully sharpen the razor with which one day you will render your own brand of justice: yours is the freedom of the pariah, and you will not turn back

you will avidly embrace your magnificent anomaly

–Juan Goytisolo
Juan the Landless
1975