“With this past before you, all around you”: On the Transformation of Identities in M. G. Vassanji’s No New Land
學年 107
學期 2
出版（發表）日期 2019-06-30
作品名稱 “With this past before you, all around you”: On the Transformation of Identities in M. G. Vassanji’s No New Land
作品名稱（其他語言）
著者 Shizen Ozawa
單位
出版者
著錄名稱、卷期、頁數 The Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture 12(2), p.81-101
摘要 This essay analyses how M. G. Vassanji's second novel No New Land (1991), which thematises how Tanzanians of Indian origin emigrate to Canada in the nineteen-seventies and seek to build their new life there, explores the effects of diasporic double dislocation. It considers how the novel's thematisation of diasporic double dislocation illuminates the possibilities and limitations of cross-cultural dynamics. For the purpose, it first examines how the characters identify themselves with East Africa and how the drastic changes caused by decolonisation lead to their sense of diasporic dislocation. It then analyses how their new life in Canada makes them feel further alienated and how they seek to cope with this additional sense of dislocation. Next, the essay considers how Vassanji explores another dimension of diasporic dislocation by making some characters seek to re-define their cultural and communal identity. It concludes by examining the ambivalence of the novel's conclusion in light of Vassanji's own oscillation concerning his cultural position as a postcolonial writer. The novel's ending in which communal unity eventually stifles individual freedom, the essay concludes, reflects the writer's increasing belief in the possibilities of cross-cultural transformation.
關鍵字 No New Land;M. G. Vassanji;diaspora;dislocation;ethnicity;cross-cultural transformation
語言 en
ISSN
期刊性質 國內
收錄於 THCI Core
產學合作
通訊作者
審稿制度 否
國別 TWN
公開徵稿
出版型式 ,電子版,紙本
相關連結

機構典藏連結 ( http://tkuir.lib.tku.edu.tw:8080/dspace/handle/987654321/117061 )