Hybridity and Identity- Diasporic Voices in Jhumpa Lahiri's Short Stories

: This paper examines the thematic interplay of hybridity and identity in selected shortstories by Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri’s fiction, focused on the Indian diasporic experience in theUnited States, explores how migration, cultural dislocation, intergenerational tensions, andbilingual/bicultural existence shape subjectivity. Drawing on postcolonial theories of hybridityand cultural identity (Bhabha, Hall), the study conducts close readings of five short stories toanalyse how Lahiri represents identity as negotiated, fractured, and performative. The paperargues that Lahiri’s narratives offer nuanced portrayals of diasporic subjectivity: identityemerges as static belonging and an ongoing negotiation between memory and adaptation,tradition and modernity, private longing and public assimilation. The conclusion discusses theethical and emotional dimensions of diasporic belonging in Lahiri’s oeuvre and suggestsdirections for future research into narrative form and language as sites of hybridity.