Return Migration in Anita Desai Bye Bye Blackbird and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss
Return Migration in Anita Desai Bye Bye Blackbird and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss

Summary/Abstract: The essay compares and contrasts the phenomenon of return migration as illustrated by literary works that present South Asian migrants to England and America in (post)colonial times. Considering the socio-economic triggers of migration, the essay investigates the characters’ cultural evolution, interpreting their decision to return to India in relation to their ability to process foreign cultural norms. A layer of the analysis establishes whether the migrants’ stay abroad is presented as an interval dominated by the occurrence of cultural clashes or processes of cultural translation. A second research focus is the interpretation of return migration as a response to the challenges of cultural adjustment or as an empowering action. A form of old transnationalism, return migration from Western destinations has not received enough attention in critical interpretations of the literature of migration. Therefore, the present essay seeks out to enlarge this section of literary studies by foregrounding the cultural and social factors that eventually shape the characters’ decisions to give up their Western adventure. By comparing the two authors, the conclusion aims to establish the particular relations between South Asian characters, the American and British cultures and whether return migration functions similarly in these two different contexts.

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