genre of autobiography
...gainst Indians . Indo-Fijian writer’s Satendra Nandan and Sudesh Mishra explore the difficulty of maintaining a sense of home when exiled from both the island in the middle of the ocean and the distant continental homeland. This provides a crucial point of tension in the new Oceanic rhetoric of regional solidarity. Both Nandan and Mishra enlighten a national story of diaspora, which is the term used to describe a person or a group of people who are dispersed from one place to two or more countries other than their own. These people retain collective memories and/or myths of their home land and feel that they cannot be accepted by their new region. As well, the people also regard their ancestral home land as their "true" home and feel committed to it. Hence, Indo Fijians feel they do not belong in Fiji as they feel bound to India. Furthermore, Indo Fijians fail to make a link with Fiji and are thus responsible for the disintegration and degeneration of Fiji. The writing of both Nandan and Mishra are examples of autobiographical genre, as well as the genre of fiction. Thus, it is of importance that both the genres of fiction and autobiography are accurately understood and comprehended in order to fully grasp an understanding of the writing of both Nandan and Mishra. Hence, the fiction is defined as "a form of discourse, which, under guise of invention, illustrates or proves an idea; and, as its superficial aspect is removed, the meaning of the author is clear" . Furthermore, defining the autobiographical genre is not a simple task because it has mostly been considered in many literary theories as a "borderline" genre, which is somewhere between "literature" and "life" and "history, or, "fiction" and "reality" .One of the most influential definitions of autobiography has been offered by Philippe Lejeune and his concept of autobiographical pact (Lejeune 1989), which emphasises the significance of the author's "signature" and his or her intentions. In Lejeune's theory the author is an important instance in that he constructs the discursive elements of autobiographical pact with the reader . Moreover, in defining the genres of autobiography and fiction, the notion of the author is equally mentioned. Thus it is of significance that the view of the ‘author’ is understood and comprehended. Hence, Roland Barthes’ landmark essay, "The Death of Author," demonstrates that an author is not simply a "person" but a socially and historically constituted subject. Following Marx's crucial insight that it is history that makes man, and not, as Hegel supposed, man that makes history, Barthes emphasizes that an author does not exist prior to or outside of language. In other words, it is writing that makes an author and not vice versa. Both Nandan and Mishra equally explore the difficulty of maintaining a sense of home, when exiled from their continental homeland during the 1987 inter-coup period in Fiji. Furthermore, both writers are aware of the racial and cultural segregation between India and Fiji. However, Nandan’s piece is undeniably and categorically autobiographical, whereas Mishra’s piece presents challenges to the usual conception of the autobiographical genre, making it quasi-autobiographical. Nandan's piece of writing is reality and is a recollection of memories, moreover it is straightforward and political; whilst Mishra's is a prose poem which talks of the history of the Indo Fijian people and the "consciousness of the people". The Indian fragment in Fiji constructed imaginary belief systems for its own self-authentication, ...