A Diasporic Reading of Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day

Abstract

‘Diaspora’ is one of the sociological concepts that find it’s reflection in today’s literature. Diasporic literature deals with expatriate sensibility. It focuses on the lives of immigrants and their inner and external conflicts in an alien land. Diasporic Literature occupies an important status in the literary field by highlighting issues like cultural dilemma, quest of identity, multiculturalism and universal aspects of human existence. This project dealt with Anita Desai. Anita Desai is one of the best-known contemporary women writers of Indian fiction in English. Her novel Clear light of day was published in 1980 is generally regarded as Anita Desai’s finest work to date by critics. The author has identified it as her autobiographical work as a result of being set in the neighbourhood where she came of age. The novel was first of three Desai’s books so far which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Plot matches theme in the parallel drawn between the partition of India and Pakistan and the move toward reunion of two sisters in New Delhi. In the following study the elements of the Diasporic literature is brought in with Anita Desai’s novel Clear light of day.