Shaik MD Thameem Basha and J Mercy Vijetha
Hanif Kureishi’s ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ is an important critical text in British Asian fiction, addressing key themes of identity, race, class, and multiculturalism in 1970s Britain. The novel highlights the life of the inhabitants in suburbia and sheds light on their experiences. The continuous urge of the people living in suburbia to migrate to London, to overcome all the stereotypical barriers and the final repercussions of such a migration is accentuated. He is critical of the views of the elite about suburbia. He feels that the people from affluent London perceive the inhabitants of suburbia as innocent, and naïve, and consider them the stereotypical ‘Other’. This paper reads the representation of the London suburbs in Hanif Kureishi’s ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ against the tradition of English critical and literary engagement with suburbia. It argues that Kureishi gets beyond the stereotypes of the English suburb by representing it as a complex and meaningful cultural zone. He also highlights the suburb’s performative nature to demonstrate identity as an anti-essentialist concept. The article concludes by suggesting that, by endowing the London suburbs with more complexity and possibilities, Kureishi’s work contributes to creating new meanings and significations of the English suburb and participates in reconfiguring the English landscape.
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