Abstract

This article focuses on the phenomenological concept of the alien as it pertains to a literary work. We approach the alien with the help of xenology, a recent strand of phenomenology, which examines the relationship between the alien-world and the home-world, as it is presented by Paul Bowles in his 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky. Our reading focuses on the themes of the ‘Alien,’ ‘alienness’ and the ‘encounter with the alien’ as well as ‘alien affectivity.’ We argue that the experience of the alien is the experience of the extreme and its affects on the traveler in the alien-land may reach a particular form of self-alienation, namely, becoming alien.