The Nowhereian

A nowhereian is a hotfoot dreamer, a restless man or woman forever adrift and looking for a place that exists only in the clouds. Rabindranath Maharaj’s latest collection of stories centres around the nowhereian, a familiar figure in the Caribbean imagination. To a Trinidadian, a nowhereian is a person with no fixed address, someone who lives on the fringes of society, either through displacement or through wanderlust. Depending on the speaker’s tone, it’s a term that can be a mild insult, an amused observation or even a backhanded compliment. In this collection of stories, split between Trinidad and Canada, Maharaj looks deeply into the lives of those who are caught in between: A young women taking her first job, an actor at the end of his life, a recent immigrant struggling to settle in Canada, a student looking for a new beginning and many more. Maharaj deftly examines their experiences of change and dislocation in rich, layered prose, bringing readers unforgettable stories of striving and dreaming, of loss and hope.