Published Paper Details:

Over the last two-three decades, diaspora literature has attracted worldwide attention. Many Indian English women writers such as Bharati Mukherjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and many others, have delineated the diasporic themes in their fictional writings. Manju Kapur's fourth novel The Immigrant, which came out in 2009, is dedicated to the depiction of an immigrant person's struggle and experience in going overseas and settling down there. Issues like migration problems, cultural conflict, sense of alienation, discrimination based on skin color, language, appearance, choice of food, etc., plague the immigrants in a routine manner. In The Immigrant Manju Kapur explores the circumstances and challenges faced by two immigrant characters in Canada, who are also the central characters in the novel, namely, Nina and Ananda. The narrative portrays their grief, conflicts, adjustment and adaptation of new culture, new language, and new attire in a foreign land. They leave behind their homeland, their family and relatives because they want to fulfill their dreams of a good life and achieve something new in life. But peace of mind eludes them. Manju Kapur paints this situation quite poignantly and evocatively.