‘Transmigration’ is a key element in Sebald’s poetry: here the transit is topographical (between different places), historical (between different times) and linguistic (between different languages). Transitional spaces symbolize the homeless migration of his characters (topographical transmigration) and become literary places of memory that connect past and present (historical transmigration). On the other hand, plurilingualism and translation allow the transit between different languages (linguistic transmigration). This geographical, historical and linguistic transit shows that the ‘Heimat’ is irrevocably lost for Sebald’s transmigrants; it can be present only in absentia, in literature, as an “unheimliche Heimat” (“uncanny homeland”).
