Homeland And Host-Land: A Diasporic Study of Ayad Akhtar’s American Dervish

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of home and displacement, nation and identity from the perspective of diaspora. The current study examines the representations of national and cultural identity in Ayad Akhtar’s American Dervish (2012). In the selected narrative, home and nation are re-narrated, not in terms of a monolithic space but as a historically constituted terrain, changing and contested cultural and national identity as a narrative in the struggle. Ayad Akhtar highlights the teething troubles of the immigrants in order to assimilate themselves with the new community. The novel has been analyzed under the theoretical framework of Paul Gilroy and Nicholas Van Hear. Gilroy (1993) presents his theory of diaspora in terms of ‘double consciousness’ and elaborates how ‘double consciousness’ leads to the identity crisis in foreign countries. Hear (1998) in his concept of Neo Diaspora shows that dispersion of people is the result of forces such as imperialism, neoliberalism and globalization. These forces are responsible for developing social, cultural, economic and political hurdles for people living intheir homelands that compel them to displace to the foreign lands. This study demonstrates how Pakistanis have been experiencing transformation in view of the diasporic compulsions of today’s global village in which they have to grapple with the conflict between local and foreign identities.