TO BE OR NOT TO BE DIASPORIC

Abstract

The essay discusses notions of nationality, diaspora and exile as applied to contemporary Indian writers, especially in a world characterized by economic liberalism, wide migration, and easy international travel, transportation and communication. After arguing that there are special reasons why writers are concerned with the past, it mentions a range of views from authors who dislike being categorized by origin to those who regard social change and new abodes within India as forms of diasporas. Recent volumes by a number of poets are examined to show some of the ways in which age, generation, and other personal circumstances can influence whether or not and why a writer feels part of a diaspora. While American‐led economic and social liberalism is now a dominant force of globalization and change, both recent and ancient history is filled with the diasporas of peoples, including writers.

Keywords:

• internationalism
• nostalgia and globalization
• Islam
• Hindoo stereotypes
• mythology and migrancy
• liberalism and capitalism

Notes

1. See Richard Coe’s wide‐ranging study When the Grass was Taller: Autobiography and the Experience of Childhood.

2. Ahmed Ali, Twilight in Delhi; Ocean of Night.

3. Bruce King, “Diaspora Novels?” 136–43.

4. Bruce King, Modern Indian Poetry in English; Tabish Khair, Babu Fictions.

5. Tabish Khair, The Bus Stopped.

6. Bruce King, “The Emergence of Post‐Independence Modern Nigerian and Indian Poetry” 331–40; “Modern Indian and American Poetry: Some Contacts and Relations” 5–17.

7. Saleem Peeradina, Ocean in My Yard.

8. Saleem Peeradina, “Giving, Withholding, and Meeting Mid‐way: A Poet’s Ethnography”. Often republished.

9. Saleem Peeradina, Meditations on Desire.

10. Page numbers refer to The Oxford India Ramanujan, ed. Molly Daniels‐Ramanujan.

11. Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart.

12. Vivek Narayan, “Odessa, Texas” 91.

13. Ranjit Hoskoté, “Introduction” xiv, xvi.

14. Jeet Thayil, Gemini; Apocalypso; English.

15. A.K. Ramanujan, Poems and a Novella.