Abstract:
The preoccupation with the concept of home and belonging is a familiar aspect of
literature produced by writers of former colonies. It is considered to be a result of the
alienation experienced by the colonized as they are made to appropriate and integrate into
the culture of the colonizer. The obvious "gap" in experience and the inadequacy of the
language of the colonizer is thought to result in the creation of the "new Englishes" such
as Indian English, Sri Lankan English, and Australian English and so on.
This study aims to explore the aspects of home and belonging in fiction by writers of two
different cultures; that of Sri Lanka and New Zealand. The primary texts concerned are
"Turtle Nest" by Chand ani Lokuge, a Sri Lankan migrant writer, and "Hummingbird" by
James George, a Maori writer. The paper analyses the concept of home as created by the
writers in their texts as a reaction to "dislocation" and "cultural denigration". A close
study of the specific imagery used by the writers to evoke their unique cultures and
experiences will be considered in order to explore these concepts. Further, the research
pays attention to the language of the texts, keeping in mind the use of language by postcolonial
writers as a tool of subversion against colonial cultural formations.
Furthermore, this research attempts to explore how the writers have used the genre of
fiction as a means of exploring the concepts of "dislocation" as a result of migration as in
the case of Lokuge and "cultural denigration" in terms of the conscious and unconscious
suppression of the indigenous cultural identity by the imposition of the dominant cultural
model of the colonizer as in the case of George. In so doing the analysis raises the
following questions: Are the writers successful in subverting and questioning the
structures of the language of the colonizers and thereby energizing their own "English"?
Have they been able to bridge the "gap" between experience and language in a positive
and creative way? The research aims to fine answers to the above queries and explore the
impact of such texts on the local and international readership.
