Breaking the Boundary: Reading Lahiri's The Lowland as a Neo-cosmopolitan Fiction

Abstract

This essay offers a critical reading of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland as a “neo-cosmopolitan fiction,” one which is invested in imagining a transnational and global community, in order to initiate a new analytical framework for South Asian diasporic literature. I argue that this critical framework not only challenges the notion of literary canons and classifications which consolidate national identity, but also offers a critical recognition of the South Asian diaspora in the United States by re-envisioning an American identity that is responsive to an age of migration, mobility, and transnational connections.