Diasporic Experience in Sefi Atta’s A Bit of Difference and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth

The experience of the African diaspora and the multicultural immigrant communities of postcolonial Britain have each generated a rich body of fiction that negotiates belonging, cultural hybridity, and the legacies of empire, and a comparison of Sefi Atta's A Bit of Difference and Zadie Smith's White Teeth reveals how very different writers construct the experience of living between cultures in contemporary urban environments. This study examined how the Nigerian woman professional in Atta's London narrative and the multi-ethnic Samad and Archie families in Smith's North London saga both navigate the inheritances of colonialism and the demands of contemporary multicultural identity. A diaspora studies and postcolonial comparative methodology was applied. The analysis focused on how both texts construct cultural belonging as fluid and contested rather than fixed or essential, and how both use irony and comedy to manage the psychic costs of cultural dislocation. Results showed that Atta's protagonist Deola experiences diasporic identity primarily through professional and gender negotiations, while Smith's large cast of characters allows for a more sociological examination of multicultural Britain's generational and racial dynamics. Both texts ultimately reject both ethnic essentialism and assimilationist pressure in favour of a pragmatic, humorous negotiation of cultural plurality. The study recommends this pairing for undergraduate diaspora literature courses at Nigerian universities, with particular relevance for students in the South West geopolitical zone who may share Deola's Yoruba cultural background.

Keywords: diaspora, multiculturalism, Sefi Atta, Zadie Smith, postcolonial identity