Sense of place functions as a touchstone for individual and national identity reflected in cultural identity through the interrelationship between landscape, individual and society. This study aims at exploring how the idea of happiness is connected with sense of place in fiction. Happiness is understood here, as a path that leads to various emotional journeys and discoveries for the characters. The representation of happiness will be explored in the context of dislocation and exile in An Imaginary Life (1989) by David Malouf (1934- ), and Women Without Men (1989) by Shahrnush Parsipur (1945- ). In this paper, I will consider happiness as “a sense of being at home with your own skin, at home with the world, at one with ourselves” (Malouf 2011: 19). This idea is disrupted when individuals are dislocated – either physically and/or emotionally – from their culture of origin, sense of meaning, and personal identity. This paper explores characters’ development towards their self-defining identity, through a critical study of the selected novels, in order to gain insight on how to demonstrate dislocation and the idea of happiness as an evolving process of self-definition in my creative project, The Borders. My novel-in-progress reflects upon Iranian immigrants’ experience of settling home in Australia and celebrates the cultural hybridity and self-defining identity resulting from being dislocated and the interconnectedness of the modern world. It also intends to provide an insight into cultural identity, and the idea of happiness, in the light of the experience and insights of characters, mostly from Iranian background, and their position in Australia.