交叠的流散空间与流动、混杂的移民身份——读《出走西方》

Overlapping Diaspora Space and Fluid Hybrid Immigrant Identity:A Review of Exit West

莫欣·哈米德是具有英国和巴基斯坦双重国籍的当代著名英语流散作家,其第四部小说《出走西方》采用魔幻现实主义手法,讲述了男女主人公萨义德和纳迪娅,在一个不确定的年份,因所出生的南亚一无名穆斯林国家的一无名城市遭遇战事而出走西方的故事。通过重新阐发英国学者阿维塔·布拉提出的“流散空间”这一概念,可以看到哈米德在小说中对现实与虚拟交叠的跨国流散空间的建构,以及在这一特殊的空间中对南亚穆斯林移民流动、混杂的文化身份之形塑,这可以为人们了解当代巴基斯坦、南亚社会以及21世纪全球移民危机之现状提供新颖的视角,从而唤醒人们对家园的重新认知。

Mohsin Hamid is a famous contemporary English diaspora writer with dual citizenship of Britain and Pakistan.His fourth novel,Exit West,tells the story of the hero and heroine,Saeed and Nadia,exit West in an uncertain year because of the war in an unknown city in an unknown Muslim country in South Asia.By reinterpreting the concept of“diaspora space”put forward by British scholar Avtar Brah,we can see Hamid’s construction of the transnational diaspora space in which the real and the imagined overlap,and the shaping of the fluid and hybid cultural identity of Muslim immigrants from South Asia in this special space,which can provide a novel perspective for people to understand the current situation of contemporary Pakistan,South Asian society and the global immigration crisis in the 21st century,thus awakening people’s re-understanding of their homeland.