This article explores the different ways in which literary texts can help us negotiate our sense of `home' and `belonging' with respect to the complex intersection of our national, regional and gendered identities. Writing at a time when the map of Europe is being radically redrawn vis-a-vis the European Union (EU) and the future of the nation state, the author attempts to take us `inside' the emotional and cognitive processes by which she, and other feminist colleagues, have struggled to produce a locational identity that is meaningful to them. As well as revealing the usefulness of national and regional literatures in this process, the article also shows how a `strategic' use of autobiography can help mediate the complexity of our positioning.
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