Cross-Cultural Encounters of Expatriate Women in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl

Authors

  • Chandra Subramanian
  • P. Arockia Nathan

Keywords:

Culture, Expatriation, Women, Homeland, Diaspora

Abstract

This essay examines how immigrant women’s sensitivities and identity formation in the cross-cultural confines of the exotic land are related to Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl (2013). It is a new, exciting, coming-of-age story about a young woman who lives in India but moves to America in quest of her identity, which changes her life. With a cross-cultural backdrop, this novel provides a broad overview of the protagonists’ sociocultural experiences in both India and America. Divakaruni has thought about the necessity of interpreting her community’s situation by portraying the experiences of Indian women in America. She depicts the conflicts faced by Indians who have left their homeland and attempt to maintain their cultural identity while assimilating into their new country.

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References

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Commonwealth Review, Vol.17, No.2, 2008, pp.21-27.

Kulkarni, Ashalata. “Gender Realities and Diasporic Dilemmas in the Fiction of Chitra

Banerjee Divakaruni.” Indian Journal of Postcolonial Literatures, Vol.11, No.2, 2011, pp.180-90.

Mandal, Somdatta. “Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.” Dictionary of Literary Biography: South

Asian Writers in English. Ed. Fakrul Alam. Thompson Gale, 2006, pp.112-22.

Sudipta, B. “Writing from Two Worlds: Novels of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.” The

Expatriate Indian Writing in English. Vinoda, 2000, pp.172-81.

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Literature of Chitra Divakaruni and Gita Mehta. Penguin, 2011

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Published

2025-05-15

How to Cite

1.
Subramanian C, Nathan PA. Cross-Cultural Encounters of Expatriate Women in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl. J Neonatal Surg [Internet]. 2025May15 [cited 2025Sep.21];14(24S):1-4. Available from: https://www.jneonatalsurg.com/index.php/jns/article/view/5872

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 24S (2025): Journal of Neonatal Surgery

Section

Original Article

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