Negotiating Gendered Identity in the Diasporic Narrative of Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s Secret Daughter

Abstract

 Through a gendered viewpoint, diasporic identity often reveals the complex negotiation between self-definition, belongingness, and cultural displacement. Gender, when it intersects with diaspora, creates a unique space where identity becomes a platform of constant reconstruction and resistance. Shilpi Somaya enlightens this concept in her work Secret Daughter, which explores the human consequences of gender discrimination, cultural conflict, and diasporic identity, framed by a powerful emotional journey of separation and reconciliation in depth. Central to the novel are two women: an Indian mother, Kavita, forced by patriarchal norms to give up her newborn daughter as an act of both love and resistance, and an American doctor, Somer, who, after facing infertility, adopts the child, Asha.