Diasporic Representations of the Orient: Re-Orientalism in Amulya Malladi's The Mango Season

Abstract

Abstract:Re-Orientalism as a concept was developed by Lisa Lau in her 2009 article "Re-Orientalism: The Perpetration and Development of Orientalism by Orientals" to ensure postcolonial studies can successfully configure new ways of analyzing contemporary global culture and its artistic and literary output. It has proven to be an apt framework for scrutinizing literary productions by diasporic authors who, through their unique positionality had acquired cultural insight into their country and their fictional representations gain additional credibility. This credibility is a legacy of centuries of Orientalist discourse which dominated the way knowledge was produced about the Orient and its peoples via political speeches, scientific works, travel literature and fiction. In this article, we aim to illustrate how a diasporic author, Amulya Malladi in her The Mango Season (2003) exemplifies how Orientalism was perpetrated by an Oriental author. The novel not only makes use of Orientalist tropes commonly used in literary representations of the Orient but also positions its protagonist and narrator as a distant observer who regards her own country as an exotic destination where she cannot feel a sense of belonging.