The current article studies a fictional South Asian female character in diasporic space by arguing that it is vital to consider her racial, cultural and historical orientation to understand the struggle in carving an identity in the host culture. Postcolonial feminist theory forms the background of this work. The locus of the main argument of this article is how Rakhi, the main character of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel Queen of Dreams, dealing with her inner conflict between tradition and culture, develops as a South Asian American in the mainstream US society. Understanding herself as a postcolonial subject enables her to assimilate the fractured parts of her being towards the end of the novel.
Keywords: Identity, Postcolonial feminism, Racial, cultural and historical differences
