Dwelling beyond Borders: A Diaspora Study of Susan Muaddi Darraj’s The Inheritance of Exile

Abstract

In the postmodern age, under the effect of rapid means of communication and transportation, migration occurs and it has given rise to mutations in diasporic self. Ultimately, diasporic conflicting identity has become at the stake and diasporas often become an irreversible historical entity that leads to them towards home and homing desire. This paper explores the split identities of Arab-American diaspora in Darraj's prestigious literary work in the form of collection of short stories, Inheritance of Exile (2007). It also underpins how troubled relationship between the first and second generation of immigrants have impacted their dispersed identity. It also unearths the lives of immigrants, their pungent diasporic experience with split identity and its fragmentations; and then their inevitable survival in the migrated locations. The paper practices diaspora theory to analyze the novel through the model of Avtar Brah as a theoretical framework that is drawn according to the research methodology.