Intersections of the Vernacular and the Diaspora (Chapter 4)

Abstract

This chapter, through Usha Priyamvada's works, who writes in Hindi from the USA, looks at the significance and implications of writing in a vernacular language from a "foreign" shore. A writer of the diaspora having a sustained readership in the "homeland" makes for an interesting study of how a native language plays out on content and subjects that are far removed in culture as well as location. The chapter studies one such intersection of the Hindi literary movement of the Nayi Kahani (The New Story) with the diasporic settings and engages with the cultural productions of "home" and "belonging" in Priyamvada's narratives.