“A woman is physically, emotionally and psychologically different from man. Let her build a world of her own and let man lend her a hand to do so.”
This Volume by Dr. Neeru Tandon addresses the problems of the pluralistic societies—Indian, Canadian and Afro-American—through an inter-textual, cross-cultural analysis of novels, mostly by women writers. As a step in the radiating of self-awareness, self-observation and self-appraisal for woman in general and as a meaningful comment on the creative effort of writers, the insights revealed here are of immense value. Despite the remarkable variety in themes, it is still possible to locate areas of common concern amongst contemporary writers. Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande, Bharati Mukherjee, Ann Bhalla, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Elfried Jelinek, Kiran Desai, Namita Gokhale, Shobha De along with Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta Mahapatra and Amitav Ghosh are outstanding writers whose portraits of life and culture are characterized by a vision distinctively feminine and different from that of the previous images available. Views of famous novelist Anuradha Marwah, well-known mind strategist Ms. Sandeep Mohan and inclusion of sensitive issues like rape, lesbianism, neurotic female psyche, gender discourses, domestic violence, etc. enrich this volume.
Neeru Tandon, M.A., LL.B. topper and gold medallist from Kanpur University, obtained her Ph.D. in Indian-English Literature. She is an editor, author, critic, feminist and a poet too. Her area of interest includes contemporary fiction mainly by Indo-Anglian, Afro-American, and Canadian Women Writers. Presently, she is Reader at the Postgraduate Department of English, V.S.S.D. College, Kanpur. She has submitted her postdoctoral research work (D.Litt.) in Woman Literature. Dr. Tandon has several publications to her credit, which include critical commentary on Rabindranath Tagore’s Muktadhara, Anita Desai’s In Custody, Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable, Perspectives and Challenges in Indian-English Drama, Margaret Atwood: A Critical Survey, Feminism: A Paradigm Shift, Emily Dickinson: A Fresh Perspective and a book of Hindi poems, and many others apart from a large number of scholarly papers published in reputed journals and magazines. She is a social worker. As President of Innerwheel Club she fights for the rights of womenfolk and stands for sisterhood. She is Joint Secretary of All India Society of Intellectuals, and Life Member of B.P.N.I. She is also Associate Editor, The Atlantic Critical Review.
