A queer vision of Nation through nostalgic Diaspora in Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night

Abstract

One of the key themes of Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night is passing through various locations. The thematic specialization, which is decisive for debates, is expressed in physiological features and presence of the Caribbean diaspora. I try to see the novel by Mootoo as a text that not only reintroduces and reforms the unique affiliation, but also the physical and social space. She points out the value of shifting diverse bodies across different areas and interactions with each other's community by constructing a living environment that re-imagines and displaces belonging. This reveals that the vengeful concepts of belonging, diaspora history, and nationalism that run deep inside the nostalgia of the novel are embedded. Decolonization may be a scientific approach in Mootoo's novel that challenges and contradicts heteronormative ideologies as it leaves space for multiple forms of belonging by beginning to ‘to challenge, to unsettle, to queer’.(Z.Pecic.Queer Narratives of the Caribbean Diaspora, 2013.)