Searching For Identity In Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha Of Suburbia

Britain becomes the living place for many people coming from different racial, social and religiousbackgrounds. Having this diversity, however, may cause to some problems due to homogenization policies and conformist attitudes of WASP people in daily life. Some of the problems experienced by the immigrants such as racial and religious discrimination may result in identity crisis by enforcing them to feel as if second-class citizens and make their lives more difficult. When the problems of the immigrants in Britain are taken into consideration, the race issue seems to be the most important one among their problems since the English people adopt a hostile attitude towards the immigrants. The aim of this paper is to analyse the issue of the identity crisis and the problems of the immigrants in Britain with reference to Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990). In the analysis of the identity issues, ideas of cultural studies theoricians such as Stuart Hall and Homi Bhabha will also be referred to within the context of the novel. Furthermore, the strategies of the immigrants to cope with these problems in order to survive in Britain will also be dealt with and the question of whether these problems would be solved in the near future will be raised in this paper. Thus, this paper aims at offering a more complete picture of Hanif Kureishi’s Britain in the late 20th century.