부산대학교 도서관

Anita Rau Badami is one of the most noticeable writers in South Asian Diasporic Literature. Her novels primarily deal with the diasporic themes of cultural identity, immigration, cultural collision, in-between space, tug-war between tradition and modernity and search for identity. In her third novel Can You Hear the Nightbird's Call? she aims to elaborate the state of immigrant's life in an alien land through the character Leela. Leela's hyphenated identity battles to establish their individualities in a new land to handle their bond with new culture and struggle to build a new space for them. Leela as a half-and-half gets neglected by her own family members due to her mixed identity. Badami has widened her novel with the concept of in-betweenness through diaspora. She highlights the term in-betweenness to explicit the idea of hybridity and cultural identity. The collision of two different cultures and then process of cultural adjustments are highlighted through distinctive incidents. The paper elucidates the condition of in-between space and the constant skirmishes to bear a hyphenated identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]