Cultural Identity and Diaspora in Linda Grant's When I Lived in Modern Times

Abstract

When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grants is the story of immigrant’s struggle for cultural identity in an inhospitable land. Since Evelyn is in search of her new identity, she cannot totally follow the roots and travels a different places as a influential character who wants her identity. Linda Grants presents the character who have lost her identity as a Jews and is in search of it in Jewish Land. But as a diasporic character she has been haunted with some sense of loss. The researcher contends that there is a comparison of now and then, here and there, in the life of diaspora. While searching for identity in a new land Evelyn unknowingly feels a sense of home and mediates or negotiates the memories of the past with the cultural difference in the present. Through these characters the novelist emphasizes on the importance of culture as well as how people become diasporic when the memory haunts and when one couldn’t adopt the culture of new land.