Mapping identity and place in Yongping Li’s The End of the River

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers to postcolonial literary studies a case study of Borneo grappling with its colonial legacy and cultural identity by exploring the dynamic interplay between place and identity in Yongping Li’s two-volume novel, Da He Jin Tou (The End of the River). Using a theoretical framework rooted in postcolonial geo-humanities, including the concept of place in postcolonialism, Yi-Fu Tuan’s notion of “topophilia”, and Robert Tally’s literary cartography, the article argues that Li’s mapping of Borneo as a dynamic interactive space offers entry into a process of affective identification that transcends national borders and ethnicity. To achieve this, the article first contextualizes Li’s Borneo writing within a postcolonial spatial framework, and then proceeds to analyse the novel, highlighting a meeting between Tuan’s humanistic geography as related to place and affective bond, and Tally’s literary mapping of spatiality to demonstrate Li’s identification with the textured and affectively charged Borneo.