Navigating Identity in Conflict: Stages of Mestiza Consciousness in Saraswathi’s journey in Nayomi Munaweera’s novel “Island of a Thousand Mirrors”

Abstract

Sri Lanka has suffered through extreme violence during Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009) as a consequence of brutal persecution and constant prejudice against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government. A large number of Tamils fled to other countries and remaining joined Tamil militant forces intentionally or forcefully. Such events produced serious consequences on the lives of affected people. Nayomi Munaweera’s Island of a Thousand Mirrors (2012) depicts Sri Lankan civil war and its impacts on people belonging to different backgrounds resulting in transformation of identities. The paper seeks to explore the transformation in the character of Saraswathi, and how Saraswathi's narrative imparts a deep investigation of the complexities of human experience in conflict-affected areas. By employing Gloria Anzaldua's framework of the stages that describe a transformative process that leads to the development of a Mestiza Consciousness, I will explore how Munaweera elucidates the fluid and contested nature of identity formation in the course of ethnic conflict and political upheaval. The paper also investigates whether Saraswathi crosses all the stages that leads towards Mestiza Consciousness.