English-Language Writers of East Indian Origin in the West: Acculturation Strategies

The paper deals with very interesting phenomenon in the postcolonial age - the writers-immigrants of Asian origin living in the West. Some critics consider the writers as the Western ones, the others - as the writers from the East. Such cross-cultural literary seeks to position itself within the traditional narratives of the West and East literary canon. The purpose of the work is an attempt to reconfigure the critical geographies by which the writers have been mostly defined. Focused on the English-speaking writers of the East Indian origin (Jhympa Lahiri, Bharati Mukherjee, V.S.Naipaul and S.Rushdie) the research is analyzing the selected writers’ cultural identities in the context of the West aimed to reveal acculturation strategies they adopted. The writers use various acculturation strategies not only because they belong to different immigrant generations, but their motives and circumstances were differ. B.Mukherjee belonging to the first generation wanted to adopt the new culture and called herself an American writer. Belonging to the same generation S.Rushdie wanted to maintain his original culture and calls himself a writer from India. Belonging to the second generation Jhympa Lahiri moves between different cultural groups and integrates the two cultures into her daily life. Belonging to the third generation V.S.Naipaul used the marginalization strategy. He could not integrate two different cultures into his life and created a blend of Indian and Western culture.

Keywords

postcolonial immigration in the West, cross-cultural literary, cultural identity, acculturation strategies, assimilation, integration, separation, marginalization, English-speaking writers of East Indian origin, Jhympa Lahiri, Bharati Mukherjee, V.S.Naipaul, Salman Rushdie

Received

20.12.2018

Publication date

20.12.2018

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GOST	Kolesnikova N. English-Language Writers of East Indian Origin in the West: Acculturation Strategies // Asia and Africa Today – 2018. – Issue 12 C. 62-68 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://asaf-today.ru/S032150750002575-4-1 (circulation date: 26.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S032150750002575-4
MLA	Kolesnikova, Nataliya "English-Language Writers of East Indian Origin in the West: Acculturation Strategies." Asia and Africa Today 12 (2018):62-68. DOI: 10.31857/S032150750002575-4
APA	Kolesnikova N. (2018). English-Language Writers of East Indian Origin in the West: Acculturation Strategies. Asia and Africa Today (12), pp.62-68 DOI: 10.31857/S032150750002575-4

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