ABSTRACT
Mercia Murray, the Namaqualand-born central character of Zoe Wicomb's October, is on the train back to Glasgow after a rather unsuccessful trip to Edinburgh when she passes through the small town of Falkirk. Seeing the name on the station signs she reflects, 'No escape from home there'. Wicomb's novels and short stories abound in South Africans who, for one reason or another, have travelled to Europe, and very few of them feel entirely comfortable in their new surroundings. Wicomb also explores the experience of a home that no longer feels like home after time spent abroad: Frieda Shenton is the first character to feel out of place when back in South Africa, and October deals at length with Mercia's difficult re-engagement with life in Namaqualand. In a number of Wicomb's works, the uncanny feeling that the unfamiliar has suddenly revealed itself to be familiar is often both comforting and unsettling at one and the same time.
