Shifting Homes in Bangladeshi Diasporic Writer Iffat Nawaz’s <i>Shurjo’s Clan</i>

Abstract

 Bangladeshi American writer Iffat Nawaz’s novel Shurjo’s Clan problematises the concept of ‘home’ for native as well as diasporic Bangladeshis. It raises questions of generational rootedness and un-belonging, forced or willing migrations, and assimilation or abnegation to help understand the various nuances of home for a 21st century Bangladeshi family that hails from undivided India, has witnessed Partition, lost sons in the 1971 war for independence, and also holds American Green Cards. It tries to find out what the definition of home is in today’s globalised world. Is total assimilation possible, or even desirable? How many migrations are required to find home? How many generations does it take to be able to claim a piece of land as home? This paper traces three generations of Bangladeshi women as they make and break homes dictated by various existential, socio-political, religious or economic requirements. It argues that while for the first generation of these women home is a betrayer, a source of nostalgia, a demander of sacrifices, or even an indirect killer, for the second and third generation of women, it is an affective place, not a nostalgic limbo, or historic burden. These women are able to reconfigure it in the light of self-discovery, adaptation, diasporic distance and hybrid existence. This paper delves into theories of postcolonial diaspora, migration, hybridity, transnationalism, and acculturation to decode how these women question insularity of homes, overcome its challenges of transformations, and create a unique cultural synthesis at the heart of it.