ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the place of loneliness in the writings by refugees across the 20th and 21st centuries. It aims to capture the complexity and multi-layered perspective of loneliness in the experience of refugees and chart this over time, cognisant of the significance of context, time and place. I argue that one of the key themes that emerges in these writings is that a perpetual state of detachment from the host culture generates an alienation that is invariably manifest as loneliness. This is not, however, a tale of a passive emotional state. Loneliness can inspire action and resilience, intervention, survival and rebuilding. However, the detachment that comes with a form of rootlessness cannot be easily extinguished, as each of the writers painfully demonstrate.
