Unfixed/Unfixing Geografictione in Aritha van Herk’s Places Far from Ellesmere (1990)

Aritha van Herk’s Places Far from Ellesmere is informed by the contrary dynamics of the centripetal forces of “emplacement” as “entextment”, and the centrifugal drive of dis-location striving to eschew textual and territorial enclosure. Taking its cue from the author’s suggestion that her text is “a map masquerading as a book”, this paper proposes to examine how she unsettles the traditional definition of place to write unmappable, unfixed and unfixing geografictione.