Identity and Belonging in Adib Khan’s Seasonal Adjustment

Abstract

Seasonal Adjustments is the debut novel of the Bangladeshi-Australian writer Adib Khan. The novel introduces a migrant, Iqbal Chowdhury, who returns his homeland after eighteen years of living in Australia and encapsulates the journey from the moment of his returning home to final resolution to go back to Australia. However, while sketching the journey Khan concentrates on the multilayered conflicts that Iqbal faces following his absence for a long time and shows how belonging to two states simultaneously results in no belonging at all. He also points out how the protagonist fails to anchor his identity in both home and abroad. Being a diaspora writer himself, the author achieves a new perspective through which he plunges into the mental landscape of Iqbal and portrays the internal crisis that continuously battled within his mind. Through examining the dilemmas and confusion that Iqbal goes through in his homeland, this paper attempts to shed light on the identity crisis and lack of belonging that a migrant faces while visiting home.