Diaspora Literature

Exile (to echo Edmond Jabès) is a fundamental condition of poetry.These 50 poets make diaspora home ground. They are the lightning rods of a non-national poetry of “between” that pushes against nativism through sheer aesthetic exuberance and necessity of innovation.    – Charles Bernstein

Women : Poetry : Migration is a superb, refreshing anthology. As nationalism and the rigidity of territorial and linguistic boundaries, under challenge, erode, this anthology of poetry by women provides a wide-ranging and innovative look at this migratory time in the writing of poetry. Migratory in terms of place and the changing nature of location, undergoing challenge and redefinition in terms of gender identity, and in transit as a polylingual consciousness and multilingual ways of writing become more and more evident. My congratulations to the editor for her vision, imagination, and persistence, and to the women who have contributed such remarkable writing to the anthology.    – Hank Lazer

Jane Joritz-Nakagawa has undertaken a remarkable editorial task in bringing together avant-garde women poets who are also migrants. If, as Susan Suleiman wrote, the avant-garde woman poet is doubly marginalised, then these poets are in a triple lock of marginalisation. Yet, as the anthology demonstrates, this can be a source of strength and transformation, which gives them a centrality, not only in their own lives, but in the cultural development of their adopted country. Indeed, some of these poets have played a crucial role in shaking up mainstream poetics.    – Frances Presley


“On google earth I write down my name,” writes Ania Walwicz in this ecstatic anthology, Women : Poetry : Migration. With sharp eye and ear, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa has gathered arresting, often experimental, poetry by women living outside the lands of their birth. These are poems where the “trans” – translation; transculture; transformation – inhabits the unsettling language of identity and location, with multiplicity, cosmopolitanism and the “push and pull” (Bella Li) of writing desire. Every page offers shifts of imagery or perspective as witness to embodiment, alterity, and hybridities of language. In the plural worlds of the poets, we hear how border crossing constructs a life (Fawzia Afzal-Khan) and “utopianism” always “goes wrong” (Donna Stonecipher).    – Anne Elvey

“Where am I going? I am getting there.” Amanda Ngoho Reavey’s words might serve as a motto for this wide-ranging, transnational anthology, which gathers 50 women poets who live in countries other than the ones in which they were born. This premise is the spark for an explosion of aesthetic experimentation that both maps and crosses boundaries of gender and nation. From the shuttling between Japan and Canada, Vietnam and Australia, or Zimbabwe and the United States, the authors gathered here elucidate a poetics formed in process.    – Timothy Yu

My response to this collection is subjective, as I was once someone who lived and wrote for a while outside of my native land. In Women : Poetry : Migration, I could relive the excitement of pleasurable dislocation I felt some of the time I lived abroad. For instance, I liked experimenting or “deconsecrating” one language with another language to “make it clearer” (Jody Pou) and discovering through writing “what I don’t know” (Tsitsi Jaji). That said, this collection is open to any reader who is engaged by thoughtful, sensual, humorous and political ideas. In her essay in this anthology, Rosemarie Waldrop concludes, “If the poem works . . . it will set off vibrations in the reader, an experience with language – with the way it defines us as human beings.” I certainly felt the reverberation of language(s) as I read the poems and essays in this collection. It’s up to us as readers what we do next.    – Deborah Richards

This anthology edited by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa is more than a poetic fact. It is a political fact because it presents to the public poets displaced from their countries and in conflict with their cultures. Perhaps this is the definition of poetry: art in conflict with languages and origins. Jane Joritz-Nakagawa offers to the reader double exiles: the exile of the tongue and the full "exile" of the female voice in patriarchal societies. Joritz-Nakagawa, in the words of the Brazilian modernist poet Oswald de Andrade, reinstitutes the "matriarchy of Pindorama." It is a work of breadth and rigor, which deserves attention and applause. As contributor Safaa Fathy states: “I write about what I lost.” Migrating is at the center of being a poet; this anthology also answers the question of what poetry is. And maybe this is what we ultimately gain from Joritz-Nakagawa’s anthology.    – Régis Bonvicino

The instance postcolonialism becomes hinged on liberalism, the liberating promise which postcolonialism propels considerably shrinks. This essay explains that in predicating the liberal ideology as a tool for self-determination, a crippling standstill awaits a given cause. The Palestinian question as recently imagined by the American Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa in Mornings in Jenin (2010) stands a glaring example for such a predicament. The predicament is characterized by a predilection towards ontology instead of epistemology, the personal rather than the collective, character over theme, irony and excess instead of explicit and balanced approaches and finally, discussions favoring culture and identity in lieu of class and resistance. Masking that same postcolonial predicament is the narrative obsession with the existential-ontological, turning the struggle into a textual one. All in all, the predicament expands on postcolonial experiences by raising awareness to the dialectics of emancipation discourses. Introduction:

This paper ventures to study the women's position in Najat el Hachmi's book, The Last Patriarch, from a cultural perspective, while paying particular attention to notions such as witchcraft, sexuality and resistance. El Hachmi creates a more powerful image of women by providing them a sense of agency, respect, and power, but at the price of intense psychological responsibility for enduring the nature of patriarchal structures. Moreover, this paper aims at exposing those hidden ideological assumptions about witchcraft and superstition in relation to women in the Moroccan culture. While drawing upon Scott's notion of "everyday forms of resistance", this paper seeks to define women's day to day practices as a form of revolt and resistance against the patriarchal order. This paper also investigates how the passive female sexuality is depicted in the book. And finally, while considering Homi Bhabha's notion of hybridity, it tackles the female vulnerability in the third space.

The aim of this research is to examine the representation of two culturally fragmented identities and their interrelationship in the short story 'Chekov and Zulu' from the collection East, West (1994) by Salman Rushdie. This research intends to observe how the diasporic experience is presented to affect the cultural identity and its fragmentation in these characters, as well as to compare these experiences to each other.

The research is carried out on two levels. First we examine 'Chekov and
Zulu' with a postcolonial framework as a representation of a collective diasporic experience in the Indian diaspora literature continuum. A theoretical frame will be applied to Rushdie’s work by utilizing writings from Vijay Mishra, as well as Rushdie’s own essays regarding the topic. Then we proceed to analyze the characters at an individual level to understand the
impact of diaspora on their cultural identities.

Indexing and abstracting Rupkatha Journal is an international journal recognized by a number of organizations and institutions. It is archived permanently by www.archive-it.org and indexed by EBSCO, Elsevier, MLA International Directory, Ulrichs Web, DOAJ, Google Scholar and other organizations and included in many university libraries.

Migration entails multiple levels of exiles in Sri Lankan Canadian author Shyam Selvadurai’s novel Funny Boy (1994) that render the protagonist Arjie as an epitome of the multiply exiled ‘other’ in a post-colonial Sri Lanka of the 1980s ravaged by communal conflicts and violence. The multiple displacements that the narrative portrays provide for nostalgic re-collection and re-presentation of the past, where the ‘home’ has been alienated by the multiple ‘intersectional’ strands of social, cultural, sexual, political and personal narratives and their clashes. All of these strands collude in the narrative of Arjie
– the queer diasporic protagonist – who embarks on a quest to tell his story, poignant with loss, love, and longing. Given the growing relevance of and need for the critical study of queer diasporic literature, this paper looks into these intersecting aspects of the multiply exiled queer diasporic subject, in the context of various spaces of belonging and exile, and attempts to explicate the intricacies of a narrative that portrays the travails of the queer diasporic subject for lost homes, loves, and memories.

Immigrants undergo displacement in their lives geographically as well as culturally. Diaspora literature talks about the stories of these individuals who are victims of multiple dislocations. It also throws light on the complexity of identity, the hybrid and hyphenated identities as well asthe difficulty in finding a sense of belonging. This paper gives an overview of Diaspora literature and the theme of Multiple Dislocation as seen in the lives of immigrants. The immigrant experiences portrayed by the first generation South Asian-American Diaspora writers Bharati Mukherjee and Meena Alexander are analyzed. It becomes evident that the experiences of the writers influenced their writings about diaspora experiences; the fissures and displacements further accentuated by their poignant styles of writing.The literature of diaspora becomes the collective expression of the nuances of the immigrant psyche.

தமிழின் அடையாளமாக பரிபாடலை நோக்கினால், முருகனின் திருப்பரங்குன்றம், விஷ்ணுவின்  திருமாலிருஞ்சோலை வையை ஆறு யாவற்றினதும் அமைவிடமே மதுரைதான். முச்சங்கம் அமைத்து தமிழ் வளர்த்ததும் மதுரைதான். எனவேதான் பாண்டியனின் ஆட்சிச்சிறப்பையும்,  தமிழின் அடையாளத்தையும் பதிவுசெய்யும் நோக்கமாக பரிபாடல் மதுரையை மையமாகக்கொண்டு தமிழின் அடையாளமாகப் பாடப்பட்டுள்ளது.

In this essay, Iranian exile cultural production is examined via a cultural studies approach, applying Hamid Naficy's work on the concept of liminality and its productive potential to analyze the Iranian women's memoir phenomenon of the past eleven years. Focus is placed primarily upon Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis, which is analyzed as part of this larger memoir phenomenon. I will argue that Persepolis is a prime example of exile cultural production—as a site for experimentation within various genres (here, that of the memoir and graphic novel), and also for identity negotiation, self-reflection, and cultural translation—thanks to the liminality and hybridity of an artist and author who feels she is “in-between.”

ਜਰਨੈਲ ਸਿੰਘ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਸਾਹਿਤ ਦਾ ਇਕ ਚਰਚਿਤ ਤੇ ਸੰਜੀਦਾ ਕਹਾਣੀਕਾਰ ਹੈ। ਉਸ ਨੇ ਪਰਵਾਸ ਵਿਚ ਰਹਿੰਦੇ ਹੋਏ ਪਰਵਾਸੀ ਪੰਜਾਬੀਆਂ ਦੇ ਸਮਾਜਕ ਸਰੋਕਾਰਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਆਪਣੇ ਕਥਾ-ਸਿਰਜਣ ਦਾ ਆਧਾਰ ਬਣਾਇਆ ਹੈ। ਜਰਨੈਲ ਸਿੰਘ ਦਾ ਕਹਾਣੀ ਸੰਗ੍ਰਹਿ ‘ਟਾਵਰਜ਼’ 9/11 ਦੀ ਘਟਨਾ ਨਾਲ ਸੰਬੰਧਤ ਸੀ ਤੇ ਉਸ ‘ਤੇ ਕਾਫ਼ੀ ਚਰਚਾ ਵੀ ਹੋਈ। ਇਸ ਕਹਾਣੀ ਸੰਗ੍ਰਹਿ ਤੋਂ ਹੀ ਅਮਰੀਕਾ ਤੇ ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਵਰਗੇ ਦੇਸ਼ਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਰਹਿ ਰਹੇ ਪਰਵਾਸੀ ਪੰਜਾਬੀਆਂ ਦੀਆਂ ਸਮਾਜਕ ਸਥਿਤੀਆਂ ਵਿਚ ਬਦਲਾਵ ਨੂੰ ਬਿਆਨ ਕੀਤਾ ਜਾਣਾ ਆਰੰਭ ਹੋਇਆ। ਪਰਵਾਸੀ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਅਜਿਹੀਆਂ ਘਟਨਾਵਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਪਹਿਲਾਂ ਆਪਣੀ ਸਮਾਜਕ ਪਛਾਣ ਇਕ ਦਿਸ਼ਾ ਵਲ ਹੀ ਬਨਾਉਣ ਲਈ ਜਤਨਸ਼ੀਲ ਸਨ ਤੇ ਉਹ ਦਿਸ਼ਾ ਸੀ ਆਪਣੀ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਪਛਾਣ ਤੋਂ ਗੁਰੇਜ਼ ਕਰਦਿਆਂ ਪੱਛਮੀ ਸਮਾਜ-ਸਭਿਆਚਾਰ ਨੂੰ ਬਿਨਾਂ ਕਿੰਤੂ ਕੀਤਿਆਂ ਕਬੂਲ ਕਰਨਾ। ਆਪਣੇ ਵਸੇਬੇ ਵਾਲੀ ਥਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਰੱਚਮਿਚ ਜਾਣਾ ਪੰਜਾਬੀਆਂ ਦਾ ਸੁਭਾ ਹੀ ਹਿੱਸਾ ਹੈ ਇਸੇ ਸੁਭਾ ਦੇ ਚਲਦਿਆਂ, ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਪਰਵਾਸੀਆਂ ਨੇ ਵਿਦੇਸ਼ ਨੂੰ ਹੀ ਆਪਣਾ ਦੇਸ ਜਾਂ ਵਸੇਬਾ ਕਬੂਲ ਕਰਕੇ ਉਥੋਂ ਦੇ ਸਮਾਜ-ਸਭਿਆਚਾਰ ਨੂੰ ਵੀ ਉਸੇ ਤਰਜ਼ ‘ਤੇ ਗ੍ਰਹਿਣ ਕਰਨ ਵਿਚ ਸੰਕੋਚ ਨਹੀਂ ਕੀਤਾ ਭਾਵੇਂ ਕਿ ਅੰਦਰ ਖਾਤੇ ਉਹ ਆਪਣੀ ਪੇਂਡੂ ਜਾਂ ਜਗੀਰੂ ਸਮਾਜਕ ਵਿਵਸਥਾ ਤੋਂ ਵੀ ਮੁਕਤ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੋਏ ਸਨ। ਅਮਰੀਕਾ ਦੇ ਨਾਲ-ਨਾਲ ਬਾਕੀ ਪੱਛਮੀ ਦੇਸ਼ਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਵੀ 9/11 ਦੀ ਘਟਨਾ ਨੇ ਸਮਾਜਕ ਰਲੇਵੇਂ ਦੀ ਸੁਭਾਵਕ ਪ੍ਰਕਿਰਿਆ ਨੂੰ ਢਾਹ ਲਾ ਦਿਤੀ। ਅਮਰੀਕਾ-ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਵਿਚ ਹਰ ਏਸ਼ੀਆਈ ਪਰਵਾਸੀ ਸਮਾਜ ਨੂੰ ਆਪਣੀ ਮੂਲ ਸਮਾਜਕ ਪਛਾਣ ਨਾਲ ਜੁੜਨ ਲਈ ਮਜਬੂਰ ਹੋਣਾ ਪਿਆ। ਇਸ ਤਰ੍ਹਾਂ ਇਕ ਅਜਿਹਾ ਦੌਰ ਆਰੰਭ ਹੋਇਆ ਹੈ ਜਿਸ ਵਿਚ ਪਰਵਾਸੀਆਂ ਸਾਹਮਣੇ ਆਪਣੀ ਪਛਾਣ ਨੂੰ ਨਵੇਂ ਸਿਰੇ ਤੋਂ ਪਰਿਭਾਸ਼ਤ ਕਰਨ ਦੀ ਸਥਿਤੀ ਪੈਦਾ ਹੋ ਗਈ ਹੈ। ਅਮਰੀਕਾ ਵਿਚ ਰਹਿ ਕੇ ਅਮਰੀਕੀ ਹੋ ਜਾਣਾ ਜਾਂ ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਵਿਚ ਰਹਿ ਕੇ ਕਨੇਡੀਆਈ ਹੋ ਜਾਣਾ, ਆਰਥਕ-ਰਾਜਨੀਤਕ ਪਖੋਂ ਤਾਂ ਪ੍ਰਵਾਨ ਚੜ੍ਹ ਗਿਆ ਸੀ ਪਰ ਸਮਾਜ-ਸਭਿਆਚਾਰਕ ਪਖੋਂ ਬਹੁਤ ਸਾਰੀਆਂ ਸਮੱਸਿਆਵਾਂ ਬਣੀਆਂ ਰਹੀਆਂ ਨੇ ਤੇ ਇਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਸਮੱਸਿਆਵਾਂ ਦੇ ਚਲਦਿਆਂ ਹੀ ਪੱਛਮ ਵਿਚ ਪਰਵਾਸੀਆਂ ਦੇ ਸਮਾਜੀਕਰਣ ਦੀ ਦਿਸ਼ਾ ਵੀ ਬਦਲਨੀ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਹੋ ਗਈ ਜਾਂ ਕਹਿ ਸਕਦੇ ਹਾਂ ਕਿ ਇਸ ਦੀ ਦਿਸ਼ਾ ਬਲਦਣ ਲਈ ਮਜਬੂਰ ਹੋਣਾ ਪਿਆ।

Language and Literature: An Exploration, provides a thoughtful insight into the wide range of modern problems like, Loss of Identity located in the racial and collective memories of colonial past, Diasporic sensibility combined with racial discrimination, and incessant miserable condition of Dalit women as determined by patriarchy, casteism, and economic lack. Apprehension of current literary temper is availed through emerging genres of 21 century like Cyber Punk, Creative Nonfiction, Climatic Fiction, Flash Fiction, Mythopoeia, and Young Adult Fiction.
An assessment of significant critical issues is provided, which ranges from the evaluation of the selected short stories of Munshi Pramchand and Chaman Nahal’s Azadi to the analysis of some selected novels of Rohinton Mistry and The Storm in Chandigharh and The Day in Shadow of Nayantara Sahgal.
Besides this drastic critical endeavor, in this anthology considerable attention has been attributed to the how? Why? And what? Of the development of fundamental skills of English Language and role of literature in society.
Language and Literature: An Exploration is a book Edited by Dr. Aif Rashid, co- authored by 11 authors and published by cape comorin publisher with ISBN no. 978-93-88761-63-5

Keywords: Kurds, ethnic minorities, migration, art, conflict.

Introduction: the aim of the present research article is to examine the Kurdish artistic expression in Turkey, from 2009 to the present time, when the “Kurdish opening-Initiative” has been launched by Turkey's Ruling Justice and Development Party. Kurdistan is divided culturally and regionally, among the four nation-states governing the Kurds. This fragmentation of power, cultural and social heterogeneity has shaped Kurdish identity, language, as well as the artistic expression. The Kurdish art in Turkey represents the Kurds’ memory, their resistance against the cultural homogenization, and the conflicting representation of Turkey.
Methods: the research was based on a close analysis of the Kurdish arts development in Turkey, and through an understanding of the social-cultural panorama.
Research Output: the research findings will shed light on the powerful Kurdish artistic activity in Turkey, after 2009 opening, aimed at defending their culture, language, and identity. Turkey's Kurdish minority art is a tool of resistance against the majority power and majority culture, and it reflects the historical and political context within which it flourished. Therefore, it is politically relevant and challenges the Turkish nationalist discourse. It depicts the Kurds’ struggle for freedom, their memory, and search for a homeland. In the present time, the renewal of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict has affected significantly the surge of Kurdish arts, considering it part of the Kurd's political agenda and political movement.

This paper deals with Caryl Phillips, a contemporary British author of Caribbean descent, whose work, both fiction and non-fiction, testifies to his interest in music, both thematically and formally: countless references to music can be found in the titles of his books, in scenes involving musical performances, in the use in the narrative of musical terminology, but also in intriguing structural analogies with musical forms.
My proposal is to analyse the influence of music in Phillips’s novel Crossing the River (1993; London: Vintage), which has been described as his most jazzy text. Very much like jazz -- which is for the Barbadian poet Edward Kamau Brathwaite “a cry from the heart of the hurt man”-- Phillips’s writing gives a voice to the victims of history, to shattered individuals in pain whose tragic fate is viewed at once as personal and collective. The novel not only illustrates the thematic overlaps between his narrative and the issues addressed in the lyrics of the African American musical tradition, such as discrimination and family disruption, but also exemplifies the author’s formal musical influence through the recurrent and creative use of meaningful variations in rhythm and of repetitions, which are again focal constituents of jazz.
Throughout the novel, especially in the sections framing the narrative, the continual modulation of purposeful words such as “listen”, the variation of rhythm through punctuation and stressed/unstressed syllables, the reiterated elements, create a sonic pattern that goes over and over in the readers’ mind. My contention is that Phillips’s musical language crucially contributes to the emotional impact of his lyrical prose, which generates in the readers mixed feelings of sympathy and disorientation and prevents them from forgetting the characters’ stories which resonate long after closing the book.

Writings have been a potent weapon for the delineation of ideologies,
philosophies and sensitive issues. Feminine writers concentrate on
issues pertaining women and their works have thus become an outcry
of protest. Kamla Das’ frank treatment of her intimate relationships
and experiences, highlight her innocence and surface the web weaved
by the Patriarchal institution (family), and the physical-cumpsychological
pain and burden on her body and mind. Polie Sengupta:
another Indian Writer, renarrates history to defend the accusations on
the mythological villains i.e. Shoorpanakha and Shakuni from feminine
perspective and colors her narrative in all contemporary hue and color.
Dina Mehta: another Indian writer, portrays her Lady Macbeth like
female characters with an air of strength, vigor and firm
determination. Manjula Padmanabhan: a writer of versatile genius,
leaves her plays with an open ending so as to engage the community
of readers with their perceptions and views on the concerned issue.
Her plays are a sort of resistance against the patriarchal dystopias in
which women have fallen on account of the biological differences and
the social attitude towards them.
Key words- Patriarchy, Dystopia, intimacy.

This article considers Marıa Lugones’s concept of faithful witnessing as a point of departure to think about the ethics and possibilities of faithful witnessing in literary contexts. For Lugones, faithful witnessing is an act of aligning oneself with oppressed peoples against the grain of power and recognizing their humanity, oppression, and resistance despite the lack of institutional endorsement. I engage the work of Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Denise Oliver, and other scholars who offer methodologies and discourses on recognition, witnessing, and resis- tance. I argue that the feminist philosophical concept of faithful witnessing is a critical ele- ment of reading decolonial imaginaries. The article undertakes close readings of two novels in the Afro-Latinx and Afro-Hispanic tradition: Donato Ndongo’s Shadows of Your Black Memory and Junot Dıaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. In these readings, the concept of faithful witnessing enriches the analysis of religious colonization and the gender violence inherent to coloniality.

The nature of human exile has been a recurring theme in poetry for millennia, with its emphasis on the loss of “home.” While the meaning of home is perhaps this genre’s most complex and protean focus, this concept is rarely reflected in studies of poetry.

This thesis explores the poetry and art of Sargon Boulus as perceptions of the evolving nature of “home” from the perspective of exile. In this context, the emphasis is on a sense of home in terms of a psychological state of contentment, acceptance and belonging. By focusing on this Assyrian poet in diaspora, I explore articulations of the human condition of ontological rootedness, the trauma of war and the facility for identifying with a culture and negotiating a sense of belonging. Closer analysis reveals the significance of his poetry in narrating the experience of living in a foreign place and as it evokes the memory of home, a sentiment shared by all displaced people. Furthermore, we are introduced to the poet’s own pursuit for a home to rest his weary soul.

While diaspora is a common experience that many nations are subjected to for varied, inevitable reasons; retaining one’s identity on foreign lands is a personal choice of integrity and loyalty to one’s homeland and origins. In this view, this thesis aims to shed light on different faces of displaced people’s adopted identities as represented in diaspora literature. The thesis, thus, expands the scope of diasporic study by integrating ethnic literature and postcolonial theory into an analytical framework, with the aim of studying the diaspora experience in the novels 'Dongola' by Idrīs Ali and 'How the García Girls Lost Their Accents' by Julia Alvarez from a comparative perspective. With the Dominican-American Yolanda and the Nubian-European Awad Shallali as the characters in focus, the thesis explores the matrix of diasporic consciousness and transnational identity by applying Bhabha’s notion of hybrid identities’ unhomeliness, Berry’s fourfold model of acculturation, and Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness. The findings conclude that both Yolanda and Shallali initially experience unhomeliness as they fail to belong to either their original culture or the foreign one, hence why both adopt different acculturation techniques to overcome their alienation. Ultimately, Yolanda embraces her double consciousness and biculturalism, fastening the knot between both her identities—whereas Shallali acts as a European and severs himself from his Nubian ties.


إن شتات الشعوب تجربة قاسية تسببها عوامل مختلفة لا مناص منها، إلا أن احتفاظ الفرد بهويته في ديار الغربة ما هو إلا اختيار شخصي يرتكز على الولاء للوطن والأصل. في الستينيات، تم إجبار كل من الدومينيكان والنوبيين المصريين على التشتت في مختلف بقاع الأرض لأسباب اقتصادية وسياسية مختلفة، وتم تصوير تجاربهم مع الشتات في العديد من الأعمال الروائية، والتي تتمحور حول الهوية الثقافية للنازح خارج حدود موقعه. في ضوء ذلك، تهدف هذه الأطروحة إلى تسليط الضوء على الأوجه المختلفة للهويات التي يتبناها النازحون كما يمثلها أدب الشتات، وبالتالي فإن الأطروحة توسع نطاق دراسة الشتات عن طريق دمج مفاهيم الأدب العرقي ونظرية ما بعد الاستعمار في إطار تحليلي. الهدف من الرسالة هو إجراء دراسة مقارنة لتجربة الشتات في رواية (دنقلا) لإدريس علي و(كيف فقدت فتيات غارسيا لهجاتهن) لچوليا ألڤاريز. من خلال التحليل الدقيق لشخصية الدومينيكية الأمريكية (يولاندا) والنوبي الأوروبي (عوض شلّالي)، تطبق الأطروحة مفهوم (هومي بابا) حول الهوية الهجينة وبقائها عالقة بين الثقافات، بالإضافة إلى النموذج الرباعي لـ(چون بيري) حول تقنيات التثاقف، وأخيرًا نظرية (دو بوا) للوعي المزدوج. تُشير النتائج إلى أن كُلًّا من (يولاندا) و(شلالي) توافقان في البداية في عدم انسجامهما مع ثقافتهما الأصلية والأجنبية، ما دفعهما لتبني تقنيات مختلفة للتثاقف بهدف التغلب على اغترابهما، وفي نهاية المطاف تتقبل (يولاندا) وعيها المزدوج وثنائيتها الثقافية، محققةً تناغم بين جانبيها الدومينيكي والأمريكي؛ بينما يعزز (شلالي) هويته الأوروبية ويقطع صِلاته بأصله النوبي والعربي.

Introduction to Writing Nonfiction

Writing Self, Writing Nation, Writing Exile and Diaspora

“Raat thodi ne vesh jaya, the proverb I grew up on. The night is short and our garments change. Meaning: Don't put down roots. Don't get too comfortable. By dawn, we may be on the move, forced to reinvent ourselves in order to survive. Invest only in what we can carry. Passports. Education. Jewellery.”

- Shailja Patel, Migritude


This course introduces principles and strategies of creative non-fiction writing in a range of genres. Students should expect to read and write extensively, participate actively in discussions and workshop, and proactively revise their work. The theme of this class is the writing of identity in all its forms, including individual identity, the body and the senses, and what it might mean to have a body and to be embodied in a society that marks bodies according to categories including race, gender, and nationality.
What does it mean to interact with the world through the body and through the senses – taste, touch, smell, sound, sight? How do we write as people who live in bodies marked for race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and socioeconomic class? What does it mean to write when we have been marked as “other” in terms of one or more of these categories? How do we understand and construct our own identities within the framework of multiple categories of belonging and non-belonging? How do concepts of gender, nation, religion, social, and economic ties impact the formation of individual identity?
We will use course readings as a guide for ways to write ourselves and our own experience, including experience of our senses, and to enrich our writing of characters and the viewpoints of other people. The course will include exercises to generate material and discussions of writing elements such as themes, voice, vocabulary, and style. We will examine readings and workshop submissions for words and phrases that jump out at us, for techniques we can borrow, imitate, or steal, and we will use them as entry points into the conversation, practice, and discourse of creative non-fiction writing.

Diasporic movements from the tiny Himalayan nations (including Tibet) are not new but these have not been in the limelight in critical discussions. The corpus of Nepalese, Bhutanese and Tibetan diasporic literary output in English is also not as much visible as those of other South Asian countries. The literary endeavours of these diasporas are in fact in a nascent stage. Nevertheless, some powerful writers have in the meantime emerged to write about their lived experience from exilic-diasporic perspectives, mostly focussing on the nations they left behind. Mention may be made of Kunzang Choden of Bhutanese origin, Bhuchung D. Sonam of Tibetan origin, Manjushree Thapa of Nepalese descent and Prajwal Parajuly of mixed origin. Their movements to the neighbouring countries or to the West pose cultural challenges and create crises regarding civilisational norms. The nations of their origin and their cultures have been the constant reference points in their writings for either emotional ...

"Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s attenuation of language, the French Nobel Prize laureate Gao Xingjian has conducted various language experiments in his literary creations in the past two decades. Gao’s literary works, as Diaspora literature, have received extensive attention from European readers due to their Western modernist literary style, the author’s anti-institution attitude, and the classical Chinese aesthetics pursued in his literary creations. As Dafne Accoroni points out in this volume, language is a cultural medium to negotiate value and life choices within the context of diaspora issues. In this chapter, I examine Gao’s literary language from perspectives of linguistic anthropology  and  explore  the  chronotopes  and  language  ideologies embedded in Gao Xingjian’s writings. Gao Xingjian has gone on to explore the idea of the self with all the tools and techniques of twentieth century consciousness. he linguistic aspect of his literary creation connects broadly with the fluidity of identities of people in the cultural frontiers that he came across and constructed. he concept of ‘responsibility’ is innate in his literary creation: to faithfully and creatively depict the human condition and the fluidity of identities under a newly established political regime. he complex literary language provides a nexus for understanding place, semiotics and people,  while  this  creative  understanding  is  very  much  undermined  by utilitarian and political human relations."

The focal point of this research paper is to put emphasis on the role and dynamics of an author in the creation of a literary piece of work and study the various aspects of being an author by analyzing Bapsi Sidhwa's The Crow Eaters. This research explores the positioning of Parsi community by a Parsi writer while also focusing upon the author's imaginative and realistic strands involved in the portrayal of a particular community. While highlighting the role of an author, this research particularly sheds light upon the narratology of Bapsi Sidhwa and how it moves from specific to the universal by giving a voice to the margins. There are numerous researches exploring the role of the author, while this research examines and questions the distant and detached position of an author which creates a relationship of perception between the narrative and the reader. Roland Barthes' "What is an Author" is used as a theoretical background for this research paper. This approach assists in comprehending the various stages and dynamics of a narrative. Future Researchers can probe literary theory and how an author and a narrative is analyzed from more than one perspective by literary critics.

This chapter argues that understanding the importance of diaspora for the contemporary period demands a practice of reading across diverse methodological approaches made across different descriptive genres, and requires a recognition of the limits of theory in depicting this phenomenon which tends, by its very nature, to defy strictly classificatory or historical approaches. The articulation of diaspora in the contemporary time, this chapter suggests, is most helpful and significant when it is able to acknowledge a particular uncertainty in the practice of history-making, as well as in the practice of categorising migratory movements into ‘types’. This uncertainty, while not unique to the contemporary time, is nevertheless accelerated in this period, and demands a set of articulatory tools which are more adaptable than ever, more open to the conditional, provisional nature of disciplinary or classificatory endeavours in the contemporary historical exercise. At the heart of this examination of diaspora is an intention to retain the difficulty which is inherent, I suggest, to identifying either place, people, or historical moment according to distinctive criteria; this practice of naming diaspora seeks instead after stories which emphasise inconclusive and often simultaneous timelines, and narratives of place which defy any sense of it as stable, unitary, or known. By putting into practice a willingness to read the ways that diaspora experience is articulated in fictional settings, the intangible qualities of diaspora experience begin to be articulated, in ways which can fruitfully combine with more conventional understandings of migratory movements, to gesture toward some of the most fragile and unnameable qualities of diaspora in current and recent experience.

L’articolo si propone di illustrare tematiche e motivi dell’ultimo romanzo di Bijan Zarmandili, “Storia di Sima” (Nottetempo, Roma 2016), scrittore e giornalista italo-iraniano operante in Italia da vari decenni, e di fornire una bibliografia completa delle sue opere narrative e saggistiche italiane
در مقاله ی حاضر موضوعات و موتیف های آخرین رمان بیژن زرمندیلی )داستان سیما( نویسنده و روزنامه نگار ایتالیایی ـ ایرانی بررسی و به کتاب شناسی کامل آثار وی اعم از
تألیفات و رمان به زبان ایتالیایی پرداخته شده است.

https://classiques-garnier.com/entre-atlantique-et-ocean-indien-les-voix-de-la-caraibe-anglophone.html

Au croisement des cultures, des histoires et des langues, la Caraïbe nous emmène bien loin des oppositions binaires. La présente monographie est une invitation à découvrir la littérature de la Caraïbe anglophone qui fait écho aux Antilles francophones et contribue à l’émancipation des corps et des esprits tout en témoignant de l’indicible. Entre mises en contexte historique et micro-lectures, cette étude fonde la fiction caribéenne dans l’énergie créatrice de l’océan Indien et de l’Atlantique noir ainsi que dans une diversité particulièrement cruciale aujourd’hui.

This monograph in French is an invitation to discover the literature of the English-speaking Caribbean, echoing that of the French-speaking Antilles. Between historical contextualizations and micro-readings, the book grounds Caribbean fiction in the creative energy of the Indian Ocean as much as in that of the Black Atlantic.

Mots-clés :
Esclavage atlantique, Atlantique noir, engagisme, travail engagé, migration, littérature indo-caribéenne, littérature sino-caribéenne, Kala pani

Key words:
Atlantic slavery, Black Atlantic, indenture, indentured labour, migration, Indo-Caribbean literature, Sino-Caribbean literature, Kala pani

One of the internal conflicts in diasporic writers, manifested in their textual and linguistic practices, is their experience of "double consciousness." This conflict which is parallel to their external dialectic in identifying with either motherland or the host country, gives form and content to their linguistic identity. To put it in other words, these diasporic subjects sometimes identify with their homeland, sometimes with the host land, and sometimes with both. This study shows how diasporic writers produce hybrid, and accented texts. Because these texts are two-layered, we term them as palimpsest texts, arguing that the multi-layered and hybrid nature of these texts implies the double consciousness of their producers. The study explored the linguistic mechanisms diasporic writers use to represent their double consciousness.

With Conscripts of Migration, Christopher Ian Foster presents a study of contemporary African migritude literature “from an anti-nationalist and African diasporic perspective” (p. 4). The compound neologism ‘migritude’ – first theorized by Jacques Chevrier (2004) – is composed of ‘migration’ and ‘Négritude’. Thus, this term linguistically marks an in-between, namely, a liminal, hybrid, or third space, which also determines the theoretical and thematic orientation of the book. However, in contrast to the meaning the conceptualizations ‘liminality’, ‘hybridity’, and ‘third space’ convey in postcolonial theory, Foster is concerned with the systemic and material aspects of immigration, among others, rather than with aspects concerning individuals and identity politics. He aims especially at connecting migration and empire, racism, nationalism, and colonialism, as well as at showing that “[c]olonial racial hierarchies indeed refract into the present as anti-immigrant discourse – which amounts to newly flexible coding for anti-black and brown” (p. 62).

The article analyses the role of third places in the works of I. Bashevis Singer. His bilingual literary corpus, which includes Yiddish and English works, is treated from the perspective of cultural hybridity. An image of a real third place is missing from Singer's works, and its absence is compensated by the construction of an imaginary third space that reveals the relation of a writer, immigrated to the United States, to the country of his origin. While the description of the European life before the Second World war is deprived of real hybridity, the author proposes to his readership a construction of a fictional third space (according to the terminology of Homi K. Bhabha), and his works generate an alternative cultural space located between the Yiddish (European) and American literary traditions and allowing a third layer of interpretation. Warsaw is transformed into a utopian place. Such a model only exists in the European context, because it is intimately linked to the Jewish traditional world and is only relevant for the first emancipated generations, those who keep in memory the traditions from their first place of residence. As soon as Singer transfers the action of his short stories to the United States, the idea of a third space disappears. Such a construction is absent from the English translations of Singer’s works because this idea is based on cultural and linguistic details of the Yiddish world which makes difficult their transmission to a non-Jewish readership.

Anti-Chinese sentiment and sinophobia have arisen as one of the current corona virus’s most serious side effects. These conditions have challenged the Chinese diasporic community’s sense of home. Far from mere diversion in a time of turmoil, Chinese literature has the power to disrupt state narratives and contest polarising claims from politicians. Online literature during the pandemic has not been limited to the Chinese diaspora, and its themes have not been limited to hate crimes. Online literature in the diaspora and in China debunks grand narratives set by the state, and provides a sense of nonphysical homecoming for them. Like these Chinese diasporic writers, we too can find our belonging with each other virtually.

Writings have been a potent weapon for the delineation of ideologies, philosophies and sensitive issues. Feminine writers concentrate on issues pertaining women and their works have thus become an outcry of protest. Kamla Das' frank treatment of her intimate relationships and experiences, highlight her innocence and surface the web weaved by the Patriarchal institution (family), and the physical-cum-psychological pain and burden on her body and mind. Polie Sengupta: another Indian Writer, renarrates history to defend the accusations on the mythological villains i.e. Shoorpanakha and Shakuni from feminine perspective and colors her narrative in all contemporary hue and color. Dina Mehta: another Indian writer, portrays her Lady Macbeth like female characters with an air of strength, vigor and firm determination. Manjula Padmanabhan: a writer of versatile genius, leaves her plays with an open ending so as to engage the community of readers with their perceptions and views on the c...

| EDITOR'S LETTER | http://www.tayoliterarymag.com/interviews/ |

We're very excited to present our newest Special Issue: Interviews. Over the past six months, we've conversed with Filipino American authors we admire and love: Jessica Hagedorn, M. Evelina Galang, Marianne Villanueva, and Luisa A. Igloria. We also interviewed the lovely and fierce Sri Lankan American author Nayomi Munaweera, a tour de force in the literary world and whose award-winning book on the 25-year Sri Lankan civil war is forthcoming in Fall 2014 from St. Martin's Press. Joining the fray is our past interviews we previously printed in our TAYO Issues 2-4: Miguel Syjuco, Barbara Jane Reyes, and Lysley Tenorio. We hope by reprinting our past interviews, we can further bolster the discussions on race, gender, culture, and class that intersect when we talk about writing and craft.

Our discussions were intense, some were brief, and many were insightful, filled with laughter, and shared the essence of what it is like to be a diasporic body writing in today's world.