Haunted by Displacement: Cultural Alienation and the Search for Belonging in Amy Tan’s Saving Fish from Drowning

Abstract

Amy Tan’s Saving Fish from Drowning (2006) represents cultural alienation and the search for belonging, with particular reference to how displacement affects both individual and collective identity. With the detailed depiction of the American tourists and their travels to Burma, the novel highlights the resistant response to Western fictions imposed on non-Western cultures. The apparition storyteller, Bibi Chen, serves as both a spectator and an uprooted subject, outlining the disengagement experienced by diasporic people who possess different social circles without completely having a place to any. The visitors, in spite of the fact that advantaged, ended up typical of social pariahs who stay dazzled by the complexities of the arrive they navigate. The paper analyses the voices of the displaced diasporic identities in a multicultural space and the intricate nature of cultural complexities in identity formation in a globalized, yet fragmented world.