"Don't Be Sorry. We Didn't Do This.": Narrating Diaspora and Problematizing Choice in V.V. Ganeshananthan's Love Marriage

Abstract

This paper discusses how, through a compelling storytelling exercise, V.V. Ganeshananthan’s first novel Love Marriage succeeds in productively articulating a sense of Sri Lankan Tamil diasporic identity. The analysis focuses on the crucial issue of choice, which operates at different levels. Regarding authorship, Ganeshananthan, an American-born second-generation Sri Lankan Tamil, chooses to write a story that has not yet been told, and makes significant choices which necessarily impinge on the textual politics, namely problematizing the genre of her story to visit both history and memory from the area of fiction. Most significantly, the politics of choice are salient at an intradiegetic level, as the novel explores the ethical viability of the choices made by some of the main characters, namely two of the protagonist’s close relatives, who may see the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as the only possibility to defend a political stance or, simply, to safeguard the dignity of living. Love Marriage also provides detailed insight of certain dynamics of this diasporic community, mostly articulated around the connections of marriage and family life. Finally, the analysis focuses on the political and emotional choices forced upon diasporic subjects, to conclude that these become more testing when it comes to members of the second generation.