Migration and Transformation of the Individual in Helon Habila’s Travellers

This work examines the trajectories of some key characters, whose migrant status exposes them to precarity across the narrative of Helon Habila’s Travellers. The narrative reflects several epistemic paradigms related to the prefixal morpheme Trans-; particularly as it relates to transformation in the context of cross-border mobility. Such journeys entail a process of change that might unfold through experiences of rupture or transcendence and transgression. Drawing on this perspective, the article seeks to conceptualize the migrant’s transformation as a form of deconstruction that operates both on the psychological and identity levels. This dynamic involves a sequence of “alteration and reconstruction” or “deformation and reformation,” which reshapes the modes of self-perception and self-representation. The analysis operates within the theoretical framework of transculturality first developed by Fernando Ortiz (1940) and subsequently articulated by Jean Lamore (1992). It conceptualizes the mutual shaping of human groups through their intercultural contacts and interactions. Thus, this article investigates how migration, in Habila’s novel, generates transcultural spaces that drive diverse forms of identity transformation.