Locating Identity in the Diasporic Space of Moniza Alvi’s Poetry

Abstract

The socio-cultural experiences associated with migration and different forms of displacement are captured by the concept of “diaspora” and the spatial evocation of ‘home’. The female writer contributes a gendered perspective to the diasporic discourse. Diasporic works, by their very nature often locate themselves in a liminal space between cultures while the female immigrant writer tries to create a foothold for herself in an even more minimal space, being a minority within a minority. Nostalgia is often a profound sub text in their attitudes towards spatial movements. Women, as the present paper sets out to explore have the ability to relate to two homes simultaneously. Moniza Alvi is a diasporic poet located in the United Kingdom but is a Pakistani. This ability to straddle two worlds from different countries is unique to women. The genres of novels and short story have been often dealt with pertaining to South Asian Diasporic literature. Hence this attempt to locate poetry in the corpus of immigrant women writing.