Textual Migrations: South Asian-Australian Fiction

University of Wollongong Thesis Collections University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Year Textual migrations: South Asian-Australian ﬁction Tamara Mabbott Athique University of Wollongong Athique, Tamara Mabbott, Textual migrations: South Asian-Australian ﬁction, PhD thesis, School of English Literatures, Philosophy and Languages, University of Wollongong, 2006.. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/621 This paper is posted at Research Online. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/621 Textual Migrations: South Asian-Australian Fiction A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PhD) From UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG By TAMARA MABBOTT ATHIQUE, BA(Hons) English Studies Program Faculty of Arts 2006 CERTIFICATION I, Tamara Mabbott Athique, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Department of English, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. This document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution. ……………………………………………………………….. Tamara Mabbott Athique 31 August 2006 Table of Contents Abstract vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Filling the Gap 1 Literature Review I: On Postcolonialism 15 Literature Review II: On (South Asian) Diasporic Dynamics 41 Chapter One – Migrant Fictions: New Arrivals or Old News? 71 Chapter Two – Born Here: Second Generation Perspectives 97 Chapter Three – The Guru Glut: Ethno-Realism and Celebrity 125 Chapter Four – Going Back: Diasporic Depictions of the Homeland 159 Chapter Five – Writing/Making History: Cultural Memory and Amnesia 197 Conclusion: Summaries and New Directions 233 Endnotes 251 Bibliography: South Asian-Australian Fiction 265 Bibliography: Critical Texts Cited 269 Appendix: Interview Transcripts 285 vii Abstract This thesis responds to gaps in the scholarship of ‘minority literatures’ and makes a new contribution to diversifying the field of literary criticism. Given the prominence of South Asian diasporic fiction overseas, the study of South Asian-Australian fiction is now overdue. Given the growing recognition of multicultural and Asian-Australian literatures, the study of South Asian-Australian cultural production now requires attention. Working from the premise that a fictional text is a storytelling device open to a number of interpretations and a commodity with a degree of cultural capital, this thesis examines the tactics employed in and around selected works of fiction. Literary texts are marked by the politics publishing and academic theory. This thesis examines some of the “invisible layers of intervention” that shape cultural production by indicating the placement of South Asian- Australian fiction within overlapping sets of academic, commercial and policy environments (Apter, 2001: 4). Having affirmed the importance of bringing a relatively invisible area of study into view, this thesis also considers the productive limits and limitations of literary categorisation. To this end, it draws on interviews with a number of writers who speak about their (self)-positioning. It remains crucial to consider the narrative detail of South Asian-Australian fiction: what types of stories do South Asian-Australian writers choose to tell and how do they craft them, what are the effects of such narratives and how are their complex cultural locations conveyed? The majority of this thesis is concerned with fleshing out these questions through detailed textual analysis that focuses on the w/rites of passage arising from the act of migration. Testing the utility of concepts drawn from postcolonial studies, theories of diaspora and critical multiculturalism, this thesis argues for an integrated theoretical approach to a set of texts that operate across local, national and transnational literary contexts. ix Acknowledgements Several writers participated in the making of this thesis by giving generously of their time and thoughts. Their contributions are appreciated and my thanks go to them. My supervisors, Paul Sharrad and Cath Ellis, who were unstinting in their encouragement and good advice, deserve a medal. Thanks also to Gerry Turcotte. Pete Randles, Kate Bowls and Nicky Evans will always have my gratitude for their kindness, friendship, good food, brain-food and shelter. Many thanks go to Doug and Edwina Hill, to John Robinson, to Dora, Clementine and Harper Bowles (and to Harry the dog). I am also grateful to Melissa Boyde and Amanda Lawson for the loan of their home at a critical time. I would like to thank David Kemmery, Tim MacDonald and the staff at the research office for their support. My candidature was made possible by the financial assistance provided by the University of Wollongong (UPA) and International Postgraduate Research Scholarship scheme. Finally, thanks to my family and to Adrian for their infinite love and patience. 1 Introduction: Filling the Gap South Asian diasporic literature has, in a relatively short space of time, achieved commercial and critical success: reviewers speak of ‘unprecedented attention’, scholars of a literature that has, ‘come of age’. This high profile is related to the diaspora’s visibility in other areas of cultural production, notably in film, music and fashion. India has ‘arrived’, so to speak, on the streets of London and the sidewalks of New York. Indeed, the market for fiction is apparently booming, as certain South Asian (always English-language) writers are reportedly paid six-figure advances for their work (with this type of often unsubstantiated literary gossip only driving the publicity machine on). Arnab Chakladar, for example, speaks of publishers taking risks with new writers on the back of “the Arundhati Roy factor; that every once in a while one writer will come along who will break the bank and return all the investments” (2000: 197-198). ‘Cool alterity’ and ‘Indo-chic’ and are just some of the trendy diaspora-terms in circulation (see Maira, 2002). Although the love-affair between ‘East’ and ‘West’ has a far deeper history, changing conditions in the late-twentieth century have encouraged the South Asian diasporic fiction phenomenon in particular ways; it did not spring from a vacuum. Rather it emerged in tandem with the socio-political changes wrought by a series of migrations to the (mainly) Anglophone countries in the postcolonial era, the changing academic scene of the same period and the continuing ‘globalisation’ of the ‘culture industry’. Emily Apter remarks on “the current popularity of Indian English-language novelists” when speaking of the “specialized niche markets within the ‘global’ that contribute to fads and fashions” (2001: 2). These markets for global literatures interface with the education network where South Asian diasporic fiction circulates, particularly at the tertiary level, on courses named World Literatures, Commonwealth Literatures, Third World Literatures, Postcolonial Literatures. Each a variation of ‘global lit,’ these “courses tend to feature similar rosters of non-Western authors” (Apter, 2001: 2). The repetition results, in part, from the constraints imposed by a limited availability of translated works and the difficulties associated with book distribution in many parts of the world. The current prominence of South Asian diaspora writing does not map itself evenly across the globe, nor (in a world still modelling its post-modernity on the modernist nation) is it a uniformly accepted positive phenomenon. 2 This mixed response to and hybrid location of production/reception has resulted in a current flurry of critical activity seeking to establish the nature of relations between identity, nation, world and between postmodernity, postcolonialism and globalisation. Diaspora and multiculturalism are only two labels under which literary criticism now proceeds. What is clear is that, Australia as a ‘settler-invader,’ ‘multicultural’ nation- state, is a prime site for inquiries into the dynamics of diaspora. Moreover, Australian humanities scholars took a leading role in developing theoretical approaches to ‘New Literatures in English’ and postcolonial studies. Yet any survey of the extant critical work on the South Asian diaspora phenomenon would quickly prove that little attention has been paid to those who write from Australia. Emanating from the publishing capitals of the UK and US, diaspora theories consistently bypass Australia as a location for South Asian cultural production. Collections and comparative studies tend to straddle the Atlantic, establishing and drawing on the iconic reputations of certain authors as figureheads or founding fathers: Salman Rushdie and V. S. Naipaul have been iconic figures, subject to extensive study. With few exceptions, authors of South Asian origin/descent are also sidelined in national debates on Australian ‘multicultural’ literature, debates that grew in response to the literatures of post-war European migrants and their descendents. Among other appellations, this work has been clumsily termed ‘writing by writers of Non-English- Speaking-Background’ (NESB) – a definition that sits uneasily in terms of those South Asian writers who have received an English-medium education. Furthermore, recent inquiries into ‘Asian-Australian’ writing typically follow a pattern set by scholarship into Asian-America and Asian-Canada which have emphasised East Asian, particularly Chinese, cultural production.1 My point is not to suggest that Rushdie and Naipaul

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