What Is the Difference Between Exile and Exiles? “Exile” carries in its wake a sense of smaller numbers, even a heroically political quality, an aura of unthreatening sparsity. A quarter century after Walcott’s derisive verdict, the term “exile” could indeed seem dated. Exiles belong to a world of smaller numbers; exiles don’t disturb “population stability,” or the fluidity of capital, and all that those entails. Yet, I’ve written a novel in which exile and exiles occupy a central place.