DIASPORA AND CULTURAL DILEMMAS: STORIES OF UMA PARAMESWARAN, FARIDA KARODIA, SHAUNA SINGH BALDWIN AND JHUMPA LAHIRI

This book is an effort to explore the dilemmas of immigrants in modern and postmodern short stories. Post- modernism in literature has broken all the conventions of mainstream writing by giving a platform to unheard or marginalized voices bringing from the periphery to the centre. With the wave of globalization and liberalization sweeping across the world, the literary minds have opened up to number of social issues. As a result, there are a good number of literary works which are making conventional subjects as a viable matter of intellectual discourse. The writers under study Uma Parameswaran, Farida Karodia, Shauna Singh Baldwin and Jhumpa Lahiri bring in the elusive complexities of immigrants, their dilemmas of race, class and gender, and appropriately transform them within the matrix of their stories. The present study has been a comprehensive attempt in locating and analyzing varying shades and contours of diasporic short fiction of Uma Parameswaran, Farida Karodia, Shauna Singh Baldwin and Jhumpa Lahiri. The study would open a new window/a new perspective in the diasporic short fiction.With the blessing of Almighty, the journey, in the making of the present work has been quite enriching and learning experience for me. This journey would not have been possible, had my mentor, guide, and teacher Dr. Anita Sharma not have been there with me through thick and thin for encouraging my research and for allowing me to grow as a research scholar. It has been a fulfillment of long cherished privilege to work under the supervision of my mentor. I am extremely indebted to her and greatly acknowledge her for supervising this work with an assiduous meticulousness. Her constant encouragement, perennial inspiration, profound knowledge, optimistic approach and amiable nature motivated me to bring the present work to completion. Without her co-operation and unstinted support, this book could not have been materialized. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to her scholarly husband Dr. K.C. Sharma for his encouragement and guidance.

I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to Dr. Rekha Sharma, Chairperson, Dr. Sanjana Shamsheri, Dr. Jaiwanti Dimri (Rtd.), Dr. Girija Sharma and Dr. Pankaj K. Singh of the Department of English, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla for their constant guidance and co-operation.

My indebtedness knows no bounds towards my parents and my brother for their constant support and blessings. No expression of words will suffice my heartiest gratitude to my husband, Mr. Ritesh Sharma and son Ekaksh for their love, prayers and advice.

I sincerely acknowledge my depth of gratitude to the revered scholars whose works I cited, from whose articles I drew quotations and whose opinion I referred to in my work to lend authenticity to my humble attempt.

With pleasure I put on record my gratitude and appreciation to the staff of the Department of English, H.P.University, Shimla, H.P. University Library, Shimla, Punjab University Library, Chandigarh, Shastri Indo-Canadian Library, New Delhi and Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.