A study of diasporic elements in the select works of Margaret Atwood, Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai

Abstract

After the two world wars and India's independence from the British in 1947, English-language writing in India has advanced significantly. Since the two world wars and India's independence from the British in 1947, Indian Writing in English, as it was once known, has advanced significantly with a few countable writers on the horizon. There weren't many writers in the corpus of works that were produced in the English language by Indian writers, especially before the label changed from Indo-Anglian Literature (that was named such before) to Indian Writing in English. The two most recent female authors to contribute to the field of Indian English literature are Kiran Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri, yet their creativity transcends the confines of gender. They speak to an Indian culture that has experienced social anguish and cultural displacement both inside and outside of their own nation as a result of globalisation and immigration. They express the suffering of Indian immigrants who have migrated in foreign countries and are filled with sentiments of loneliness and displacement while having no other options for freedom on many fronts. The selection of these two highly regarded and award-winning authors was made for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they are both contemporary writers with a wide range of parallels and differences. They share a lot of traits, yet they also naturally vary in overt and subtle ways. Nonetheless, the literary output they provide readers with is overwhelmingly impressive, and they give voice to the world's silent immigrants. They present sorrowful, yet true, stories. For instance, the fictional character Biju from Kiran Desai's novella “Inheritance of Loss” has heart breaking anecdotes to share with us about his status as an illegal immigrant and how he concealed from American Immigration police agents by vanishing from the restaurant and through the hotel's mouse hole. There are now tens of thousands of Bijus living in countries like the United States, Germany, France, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc. Lahiri contrasts the two lives of two brothers who are travelling in opposite directions in her novel “Lowland”, which is a poignant and emotional depiction of immigrants. State terrorism claims the life of a young man as the wealthy continue to amass ever-increasing wealth at the expense of the poor, who continue to live in poverty. The “Lowland”, which was nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2013, is sensitive to the brutal realities of society and the way the state uses the rural and ignorant majority for political purposes. The handling of female characters in immigrant stories also calls for a critical examination of Lahiri and Desai's literary creations. Another one of the well-known female writer Margaret Atwood in her novel “Surfacing” the main subject is separation. This is established in the opening chapter, as it is revealed that the narrator is politically dispossessed as an English speaker living in Quebec at a period when Québec was wanting to become an independent French-speaking nation. The narrator compares human contact to that of animals because she feels cut off from the people around her. As an illustration, the narrator thinks of an animal "at the instant the trap closes" while overhearing David and Anna having sex. Extremist David, who argues that Canada would be better off without the "fascist pig Yanks" and advises that they be driven out of the country by assault beavers, is the face of nationalism. The researcher opted to pick these two Indian immigrant women writers and Margaret Atwood for the dissertation as a result.