Sushma Brahmadevara

Re-establishing Identity: a Study of Women Characters in the Select Fiction of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Sushma Brahmadevara

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, a postcolonial Indian diasporic writer, known for her individualistic styles, themes and techniques focuses most of her writings on the various issues confronted by women immigrants in America. She portrays gender issues, social inequalities and ideological structures of Indian and American societies. Divakaruni pitches her texts in familiar areas of Indian womanhood for whom motherhood and sisterhood hold much weight. Being an expatriate woman writer, she portrays the lives of women, their loss, alienation, assimilation and acculturation in the diasporic realm. Her women characters emerge as new women who claim their own space. She is a representative of Indian women?s liberation, autonomy and independence in a new society. She explores diasporic nationalism through her characters, setting and locations. The questions of identity, recognition, self-construction and adaptability are given equal importance in her literary endeavours. This book highlights woman?s consciousness in the novels of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. It discusses Divakaruni?s art of characterization - of women who become stronger and powerful.