In today’s globalized and transnational landscape, the question of identity has acquired unprecedented urgency, especially among communities that find themselves navigating multiple cultural, linguistic, and geopolitical spaces. This paper offers a comprehensive qualitative analysis of the diasporic narratives crafted by Jhumpa Lahiri, a prominent voice in contemporary postcolonial literature. Lahiri’s works, such as Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, and Unaccustomed Earth, provide rich case studies for understanding the tensions and negotiations involved in identity formation among immigrant communities, particularly those of South Asian descent. This research investigates how Lahiri’s characters wrestle with inherited traditions, societal expectations, cultural displacement, and the longing for a cohesive self within a hybrid cultural framework. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from postcolonial scholars like Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart Hall, and Gayatri Spivak, this paper demonstrates that identity in Lahiri’s fiction is not a fixed or monolithic construct but a dynamic and fluid process constantly in motion. By analyzing the narrative structures, character arcs, and thematic concerns in Lahiri’s fiction, this study reveals how diasporic individuals negotiate belonging and selfhood in a world marked by both fragmentation and synthesis.
Neeraj Kumar Parashari (Wed,) studied this question.