Monica Ali and Zadie Smith, Diaspora and Multiculturalism, Cross-Cultural Conflicts: A Comparative Study of Monica Ali and Zadie Smith. The concept of diaspora is central to this study, so it is appropriate at this point to reflect on its meaning and on what this work has established about its usefulness to the understanding of South Asian women's identity. Diaspora has become a breeding ground for new sociological concepts within scholarly work. In recent times, the diaspora has penetrated the discipline of sociology and provides new ways of thinking about race and ethnicity.
Multiculturalism relates to communities containing multiple cultures. The term "multiculturalism" is usually used in the field of social and cultural science, including race, religion, ethnicity, or colour itself. It was used for the first time in the 1960s in Switzerland and later in Canada, where it described the process of mixing the Francophone and Anglophone populations. The ideology behind multiculturalism is that all cultures share similar values and are equipped; therefore, they create such an environment suitable for mutual and meaningful enrichment.
Not many people write successful first novels. Still fewer can change their world with their writings. Monica Ali and Zadie Smith did both. Whilst social and political grievances are expressed in the writings, the women also succeed in expressing intimately personal concerns, many of which are centered on questions of identity. For all the differences between the works to be surveyed here, the theme of searching for identity is pervasive and brings many different protagonists into a questioning confrontation with their own heritage as well as the cultural mores of the society in which they find themselves. The quest for individuality, the theme of the journey through space and time, the acceptance or rejection of categorization, confrontation with patriarchal constraints, and the tendency to seek self-definition in terms of comparison with the behavior or identities of others are recurring themes in the creativity of British South Asian women.
Zadie Smith and Monica Ali represent different aspects of the British immigrant experience since the Second World War. Zadie Smith, who was born in North London in 1975toanEnglish father and Jamaican mother, emerges from the" first phase of post-war immigration from the West Indies. Monica Ali, born in Bangladesh in 1967, is also of mixed parentage, English and Bangladeshi, and moved to Bolton in the north-west of England when she was three years old. Both authors studied at university: Smith read English at Cambridge.
White Teeth was successfully adapted for television in the autumn of 2004. Such reactions, both positive and negative, are indicative of the extent to which both books in some way responded to the contemporary mood in Britain. Zadie Smith is one of the most influential authors who bring attention to the struggle of identity that people with ethnic origins have to face while attempting to assimilate into society.
The author manages to portray such struggles of everyday life with wit and humor but also emphasizes the pressing reality of the multicultural world. Who else but Zadie Smith should address such issues, for she herself comes from a mixed marriage of her Jamaican mother and an English father. Given Smith's hybrid origin, the themes explored in her novels are arguably derived from Smith's own experience. The author mainly draws attention to matters such as social assimilation of immigrant generations, identity crisis, discrimination, predestination, and racism.
Diaspora and
multiculturalism are the major themes of Monica Ali's novels. The term
Diaspora comes from an ancient Greek word meaning "to scatter about." And that's exactly what the people of a Diaspora do-they scatter from their homeland to places across the globe, spreading their culture as they go.
