Unstable Homes in Asian Diasporic Literature

This is the first book-length study that destabilises and redefines the concepts of “homes,” real and imagined, in Southeast Asian, South Asian, and East Asian diasporic literature. The “homes” constructed, dismantled, and reconstructed in the selected Asian diasporic literary texts are diverse and reflect the evolving cultural, socio-economic, and political dynamics of contemporary global realities. The chapters form a unified thematic thread, even as the narratives of “homes” disavow unities of space, time, subjectivity, and identity. The book is an indispensable guide to Asian Diaspora Studies, Asian and Asian-American Studies, Multicultural Literature Studies, Ethnic Studies, Sociology, and Globalisation Studies, making it essential reading for scholars, students, and researchers in these fields.

The collection explores the emotional journey of transnational voluntary and involuntary migration, exile, uprootedness, dislocation, fragmentation, mobility, and multiplicity. It mourns the loss of “homes” while celebrating the resilience and adaptability that lead to the creation of new “homes” in Southeast Asian, South Asian, and East Asian diasporic spaces.