Interpreter of Maladies

The Ubiquitous Unhomeliness of the Diasporic Home

The Ubiquitous Unhomeliness of the Diasporic Home

In rendering Homi Bhabha’s concept of the unhomely, or “the estranging sense of the relocation of the home and the world—the unhomeliness—that is the condition of extra-territorial and cross-cultural initiations,” through the sounds and daily events of a young girl’s life, Jhumpa Lahiri exposes a particular formation of unhomeliness inherent to diasporic experience.

We Have Something to Say

We Have Something to Say

Inside most classrooms lives a beast, many-eyed. If you’ve been a student in a classroom, especially in those early grades when a year lasts an eon, you’ve been part of this beast. You saw your elementary-school teachers with a collective, sharpened vision (their combovers, fluffy perms, paunches, thick, magnifying glasses) as you sat, caged and…