Across the Transnation: Citizenship and Liminality in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Novels

This paper investigates citizenship and liminality in Jhumpa Lahiri’s narrative. By reading The Namesake (2003) and The Lowland (2013) as transnational novels that transcend spatio-temporal boundaries, I intend to show how Lahiri illuminates the transformative power of the in-between through overlapping nuances of citizenship (diasporic, flexible, global-nomadic and environmental). Whereas The Namesake examines the tensions of assimilation through a focus on names and identities in transition at a physical and mental level, The Lowland hinges on family bonds and temporal disruptions that result in imaginative geographical connections between West Bengal and Rhode Island. The importance attributed to threshold spaces (trains, bridges, suburbs, and waterscapes) demonstrates that the transnation can open up new ways of inhabiting the world in an attempt to find a balance between local and global issues.