Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
Publisher
School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Abstract
Spatial history has been defined by Nigel Thrift as the merger of space, a term he associates with human geography, with time, a word borrowed from history. This paper analyzes the spatial history at play in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, a novel that ponders on questions of identities flawed by a deep sense of deprivation and loss left by colonization that manifests itself in various forms through generations. It particularly focuses on two characters, Gyan and Biju, whose responses to space are determined by the historical resonance of these places even as they are influenced by other inhabitants who respond differently to spatial history. In the process, both Gyan and Biju become examples of a specific, fluid postcolonial subjectivity, as they are products of the contact zone—where the meaning of spatial history includes repercussions of conscious and unconscious human interaction.
Recommended Citation
Nanda, A. (2020). Colonial Hangover and the Politics of Space in Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss. Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, 27. https://doi.org/10.26262/gramma.v27i0.8984
Comments
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