Fragmented Selves and Gendered Diasporas: Feminine Voices in the Fiction of Kiran Desai

<p><span>Fiction by Kiran Desai provides a vibrant insight to the dynamics of neo-diasporic identity, the relocation of culture and gender issues of displacement. Desai presents stories in which characters are defined by their positions in a country, or their language or cultural expectations and questioning the multi-layered and conflicting world of transnational living today. The paper explores how Desai has privileged the feminine voice in the neo-diasporic dispensation with a special focus on The Inheritance of Loss and Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. It examines how displacement, cultural hybridity and marginality interact with gender to influence psychological and social dimensions of the characters and shape their realities. The politics of place and identity and the overtones of feminine resistance and survival in patriarchal and colonial traditions are given special stress. The works of Desai can be regarded as an attractive location to explore the process of self-disintegration and appropriation of home in a globalized environment.</span></p>