PresentationPDF Available

THEME OF DIASPORA : BY INDIAN

ENGLISH WOMEN WRITERS CHITRA
BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI AND BHARATI
MUKHERJEE IN THE MISTRESS OF
SPICES AND JASMINE
What is Diaspora?

The word “diaspora,” was originally coined from Greek term,

‘diaspora’ which means dispersion or scattering.
Diaspora History

Jewish people after the Babylonian captivity of 586 B.C

returned from exile to Jerusalem, Jewish communities
continued to exist throughout much of the ancient
Mediterranean and Near Eastern world, including Babylon,
Egypt, Syria, Greece, and Rome. “Diaspora’ referred to the
people of that dispersion. The term was eventually extended
in this century to refer to other peoples who are dispersed to
regions outside their original homeland.
Diaspora Modern Meaning

Diaspora people find themselves restricting, expanding,

mixing and matching their new and old homes, their new and
old lives and identities. It is study of what is taken with one,
of what is left behind and of what is transformed.
Characteristics of Diasporic Literature

Diaspora literature could be examined using several key

features:
 
1) It is based on the idea of a homeland.
 
2) Diaspora literature provides narratives of harsh journeys
undertaken for various reasons.
 
3) Diaspora provides accounts of another “sense of place”
away from home land.
 
4) One could read how “homeland-made” protagonists
behave in a far of land either adopting or rejecting new
cultural codes of their new “sense of place”.
 
Therefore, when reading diaspora literature, we can learn
why and how some people choose to migrate to another
country either voluntarily or due to other reasons, and how
they get used to living condition.
Diaspora Writers

V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, M.G. Vassanji, Shani Mootoo,

Bharati Mukherjee, David Dabydeen, Rohinton Mistry , Hanif
Kureishi, Jhumpa Lahiri etc.
Diaspora Examples

Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988) ,The Ground Beneath Her

Feet (1999), Grimus (1974), Midnight‘s Children (1981), Jhumpa Lahiri’s The
Interpreter of Maladies.
Conclusion

Diaspora, is therefore, a scattering of the seed in the wind,

the fruits of which are a new creation and a fight to
survive. Diaspora is a journey towards self-realization, self-
recognition, self-knowledge and self-definition.