Etymological Meaning:
The
word "diaspora," was originally coined from Greek term, ‘diaspora’
which means dispersion or scattering.
History of the term “Diaspora”:
Jewish people
after the Babylonian captivity of 586 B.C returned from exile to
Jerusalem, Jewish communities continued to exist throughout much of the ancient
Mediterranean and Near Eastern world, including Babylon, Egypt, Syria, Greece,
and Rome. "Diaspora' referred to the people of that dispersion. The term
was eventually extended in this century to refer to other peoples who are
dispersed to regions outside their original homeland.
 |
| V. S. Naipaul |
Modern
Meaning:
Diaspora
people find themselves restricting, expanding, mixing and matching their new
and old homes, their new and old lives and identities. It is study of what is
taken with one, of what is left behind and of what is transformed.
 |
| Salman Rushdie |
Characteristics
of Diasporic Literature:
Diasporic
literature could be examined using several key features:
1) It is
based on the idea of a homeland.
2) Diasporic
literature provides narratives of harsh journeys undertaken for various
reasons.
3) Diaspora
provides accounts of another “sense of place” away from home land.
4) One could
read how “homeland-made” protagonists behave in a far of land either adopting
or rejecting new cultural codes of their new “sense of place”.
Therefore,
when reading diasporic literature, we can learn why and how some people choose
to migrate to another country either voluntarily or due to other reasons, and
how they get used to living condition.
Diasporic Writers:
V.S. Naipaul,
Salman Rushdie, M.G. Vassanji, Shani Mootoo, Bharati Mukherjee, David
Dabydeen,
Rohinton Mistry , Hanif Kureishi, Jhumpa Lahiri etc.
 |
| Bharati Mukherjee |
Diasporic Writings:
Salman Rushdie’s
The
Satanic Verses (1988) ,The Ground Beneath Her Feet
(1999), Grimus (1974), Midnight‘s Children (1981),
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies.
Conclusion:
Diaspora, is
therefore, a scattering of the seed in the wind, the fruits of which are a new
creation and a fight to survive. Diaspora is a journey towards
self-realization, self-recognition, self-knowledge and self-definition.
Literature liberates and leavens our latent learning with limpid lumina. So myself a lustful literary lacky.
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