Within Salih’s novel, main character Mustafa seems to have a Orientalist room in his London flat and a very ‘English’ flat in his Sudan home. He creates the ‘there’ here and the ‘here’ there.  This polarisation presented itself to me as a prime representation of the third space.

“How ridiculous! A fireplace- imagine it! (in the desert) A real English fireplace with all the bits and pieces” pg.136

“A graveyard. A mausoleum. An insane idea. A prison. A huge joke. A treasure chamber” pg. 137-8