Self-exile makes a writer accountable to his new, not home, readership

Evidence

Writers-in-exile often write primarily for readerships which are materially absenr from the immediate conditions of their production, present only in the country from which the writer has been forcibly exiled, hence all the more vividly and excruciatingly present in the writer’s imagination because their actuality is deeply intertwined with the existential suffering of exile and with the act of writing as such. The self-exile has no such irrevocable bond; he is free to choose the degree of elasticity of that bonding, and the material consequences of his migrancy necessarily bring him into a much more accountable relation with the readership which is materially present within the milieu of his productive work. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 512

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines a sharp distinction between the exile (whose readership bond is irrevocable and fused with suffering) and the self-exile (whose bond is freely chosen, more elastic), which matters for judging Rushdie’s political accountability.
• XREF: connects to: Self-exile imposes accountability to the present readership where exile does not — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 512; Self-exiles answer to their local readership unlike forced exiles — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 222; Rhetorical inflation made exile a soul-condition detached from material life — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 339

Broader Connections

• Self-exile imposes accountability to the present readership where exile does not #corroborates (0.95) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 512
• Self-exiles answer to their local readership unlike forced exiles #corroborates (0.90) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 222
• Rhetorical inflation made exile a soul-condition detached from material life #qualifies (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 339