“Nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths of time and only fully realize their horizons in the mind’s eye. Such an image of the nation–or narration–might seem impossibly romantic and excessively metaphorical, but it is from those traditions of political thought and literary language that the nation emerges as a powerful historical idea. An idea whose cultural compulsion lies in the impossible unity of the nation as a symbolic force.”
Homi Bhabha, “Nation and Narration”
