Migration and Cultural Issues in Anita Desai's Bye Bye Black Bird and Kiran Desai's The Loss of Inheritance

Abstract

The present paper compares and contrasts the phenomenon of migration and racial issues as illustrated by literary works that present Indian migrants to England and America in (post)colonial times. Considering the socio-economic triggers of migration, the paper investigates the characters’ cultural inferiority, cultural evolution, struggle for survival on alien land, interpreting their decision to return to India in relation to their ability to process foreign cultural norms. A layer of the analysis establishes whether the migrants’ stay abroad is presented as an interval dominated by the occurrence of cultural clashes or processes of cultural translation. It focuses the interpretation of cultural as a response to the challenges of cultural adjustment or as an empowering action. A form of old transnationalism, return migration from Western destinations has not received enough attention in critical interpretations of the literature of migration. Therefore, the present study seeks out to enlarge this section of literary studies by foregrounding the cultural and social factors that eventually shape the characters’ decision to give up their Western adventure. By comparing the two authors, the conclusion aims to establish the particular cultural relations between Indian characters, the American and British beyond to their cultures specificities and diversity and whether migration functions similarly in these two different contexts.