The Theme of Alienation in Kiran Desai’s the Inheritance of Loss

The theme of alienation has been recurrent in the Indian English fiction. It has become a major concern for post-modern writers and Kiran Desai, daughter of Anita Desai is no exception. She has explored this contemporary issue in her second novel The Inheritance of Loss for which she took eight long years to complete. The various themes which are intertwined in the novel The Inheritance of Loss are globalisation, multiculturalism, insurgency, poverty, isolation and issues related to Loss of identity. The author Kiran Desai exposes powerfully the ill-effects of globalisation and liberalisation which profess to create wealth and improve the quality of life; but in reality widen the gulf between the rich and the poor. She powerfully delineates how the sense of ‘loss' has started with Jemubhai Patel, the Judge who vainly attempts to become an Anglicised person and gets alienated in the process in the colonial period. This article explores the theme of alienation in Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss