Of cityscapes, affect and migrant subjectivities in Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss

Abstract

Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss revolves around questions of identity and entities flawed by a deep sense of deprivation and loss left by colonization that manifests itself in various forms through generations. The novel chronicles the lives of an Anglophile Indian judge, Jemubhai Patel, whose educational sojourn in Britain permanently brands him as an alien both abroad and in his homeland, and of his orphaned 16-year-old granddaughter Sai, her tutor/lover Gyan, and Patel’s cook who pushes his son, Biju, to go seek his fortune in America. This paper seeks to discuss the lives of Jemubhai and Biju as it tracks the role of the city and its impact on the construction of their identities. This impact factor is further analyzed through affective theory, namely Jose Munoz’s concept of “disidentification,” a tactic of survival by which minoritarian subjects either consciously or unconsciously “neither assimilate nor strictly oppose the dominant regime.”