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Hybridity And Identity Crisis In Postcolonial South Asian Fiction

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Zaheer Shafqat ¹ , Syed Muhammad Abbas Rizvi ¹ ,

⁴ Department of English Language and Literature, University of Sargodha, Pakistan

⁴ MPhil English Literature, Riphah Institute of Languages and Literature, Pakistan

Abstract

Postcolonial South Asian fiction persistently interrogates the complexities of hybridity and identity crisis emerging from colonial histories and their lingering socio-cultural consequences. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart Hall, and Frantz Fanon, this study examines how selected South Asian novelists portray fractured subjectivities, cultural displacement, and negotiated identities. The research focuses on key literary texts including Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. Through qualitative textual analysis, the study explores how characters navigate the liminal spaces between tradition and modernity, homeland and diaspora, colonial inheritance and postcolonial nationalism. The findings reveal that hybridity in South Asian fiction is not merely a cultural mixture but a dynamic site of negotiation that simultaneously produces empowerment and psychological fragmentation. Identity crisis emerges as a central thematic concern, often manifested through language conflicts, generational tensions, and diasporic alienation. By situating literary narratives within broader historical and cultural contexts, this research highlights how postcolonial South Asian fiction redefines identity as fluid, relational, and continuously reconstructed. Ultimately, the study argues that hybridity functions as both a strategy of resistance and a source of existential uncertainty, reflecting the region’s complex engagement with colonial modernity and globalization.

Keywords

Hybridity, Identity Crisis, Postcolonialism, South Asian Fiction, Diaspora, Cultural Negotiation

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Hybridity And Identity Crisis In Postcolonial South Asian Fiction

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