This project is comprised of a metafictional novel with an accompanying exegesis. I will first outline the novel as it contextualises the theoretical and methodological approach I discuss throughout the exegesis. The creative manuscript follows three interconnected characters each enacting different forms of return after experiences of exile. This act of return triggers a rupture that forces each character to embrace new, transcultural identities, enabling greater empathy and acceptance of ‘the other’. These characters are Samira, Finlay, and Sophie.

Samira is a Bosnian-American woman who left her hometown of Sarajevo with her parents just after the beginning of the Bosnian war in 1992. Set in present day, Samira is now an adult with a tenuous connection to her home country. Struggling to deal with the recent loss of her child and husband, Samira returns to Sarajevo and reunites with an aunt who stayed in Sarajevo during the war and is subsequently dealing with her own traumas. Finlay, an Australian man of Scottish descent, is also dealing with grief, after the passing of his mother six months before the novel begins. He is traveling to the Shetland Islands to attempt to reunite with his estranged half-sister, Sophie, who is the third—and autobiographical—character. She is present in the novel through the letters she writes to Finlay while traveling to and in the Shetland Islands to meet their deceased mother’s estranged family members. The letters are written around five months before the events of the novel, and form a bridge between Samira and Finlay’s narratives, as they end up in Samira’s possession when she meets him by chance at Heathrow airport. As a whole, the narrative deals with themes of exile, return, familial trauma and separation, and shame. By enacting a return and confronting these issues, each character experiences a shift in their perception which allows for the emergence of a new, transcultural identity, and consequently an increase in their ability to relate to or accept the point of view of ‘the other’.

The blend of autobiography and fiction in the metafictional novel reflects the hybrid nature of transcultural identity and encourages the same leap of empathic imagination in its readers as it does in its characters. The exegesis explores the autoethnographic and practice-based research processes that informed the creation of the manuscript. This involves examining my own act of return after (familial) exile and experience with transcultural identity through the lens of other exile narratives. Additionally, a meditation on my motivations for writing metafiction leads to a comparative analysis of other creative writers—Ruth Ozeki and Jonathan Safran Foer—working with this form. I use theoretical writing about the metafiction genre to outline why a hybrid form best suits my creative work. The blend of fiction and autobiography in metafiction creates a bridge for the understanding of difference, hence increasing access to empathic imagination for both the writer (me) and the reader. I also examine relevant academic theories on autoethnography including exo-autoethnography to further refine my methodological intent. […]