Ausdruck vom 8.8.2023 / /for proofreading purposes only/ /nur zum Korrekturlesen “Living in Exile in My Own Country”: Artists Raising the Rainbow Flag in the Caribbean Ralph J. Poole “Living in Exile in My Own Country” The quote is taken from Helen Klonaris, a Greek-Bahamian lesbian dividing her life between her home Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, and the Bay Area of California. In 2004 she writes an “Independece Day Letter” on the occassion of her country’s 31 st celebration of independence from the UK. The letter, published in Thomas Glave’s groundbreaking LGBTQ+ anthology, Our Caribbean (2008), remarks the upcoming demonstrations against the queer community in Nassau. She bemoans living “in a country that doesn’t think I should exist [ . . . ] I am an- gry because I live in exile in this, my own country” (Klonaris, 2008: 197-198). 1 She sets up a paradoxical condition: she calls her Caribbean birth-place exile, not her chosen place of living in the U.S. California, her chosen part-time abode, is assumingly more livable due to its queer-inclusivity, whereas the Bahamas she outspokenly suggests to be rampantly homophobic. Obviously, she opts for an un- derstanding of “exile” that is based on emotional alienation rather than geographi- cal dislocation. This particular letter is part of a larger project aptly entitled Letters from a Heretic at Home (Klonaris, 2008: 201) and it alludes to her understanding of being a heretic within her own homeland –someone whose opinion differs from established belief or doctrine. Indeed, she explicitly defies the church leaders of her island who do not welcome her or people like her, and who help upholding an “imaginary line that divides” Bahamians from one another (Klonaris, 2008: 198). She ultimately envisions a decolonized Bahamas that empowers “those with the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual creativity to put that vision into action” (Klonaris, 2008: 200). Klonaris’s notion of an exile as being a heretic at home partly correlates to the well-known postcolonial concept of “intellectual exile” as described by Ed- ward Said. While Said mostly has an actual exile in mind, he also proposes exile 1 The letter first appeared in the Nassau Daily Tribune (6 Aug 2004).