Reconstructing Self in Diasporic Narratives: A Transnational Identity Reading of Aamer Hussain’s “The Girl From Seoul”

Abstract

In the modern globalized society, the issue of identity and belonging has been of central concern in literary and cultural studies. However, there is a lack of studies that consider the short story by Aamer Hussain, as an act of identity in the form of a fluid and transnational identity. In this paper, Transnational Identity Theory is used to observe the re-construction of identity in "The Girl from Seoul by Hussain". The research explores the manner in which the identity of the protagonist is formed in the context of cultural displacement, emotional negotiation, and creativity in a variety of spaces with the help of Thematic Analysis. The study seeks to demonstrate how identity is defined and redefined through adaptation, memory and self-reinvention in the context of transnational settings. The results imply that Hussain renders identity as being elastic, multifaceted and psychologically complex -that goes beyond geographic boundaries and into emotional and imagination domains.