Female Subjectivity in Narrating the Body: Selected Works of Contemporary Indian Women Writers (Hardcover-2024)

About the Book

The book examines contemporary Indian women writers working in the English language, namely Anita Nair, Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, and Meena Kandasamy, all of whom give a free expression to the idea of body and sexuality, and self and identity in their writings. It is a comparative study and looks at women’s literary work and its relationship to the body in third-world societies. The attempt is to examine their works from this corporeal as well as a socio-cultural phenomenon. There are informative and comparative analyses that will be of immense use to students and scholars with an interest in body studies and women’s writing in India. The authors have taken a valid and fresh approach towards the interpretation and interrogation of body politics and female subjectivity. Divided in five chapters, through an interdisciplinary approach, the book successfully examines issues related to gender, sexuality, identity, and selfhood, drawing on the socio-cultural, historical, and psychological insights that the selected writers bring to the works chosen for study. The subject matter is well-drafted and reflects extensive reading on the issues of gender and sexuality, and on which, not much work has been done in the current Indian context. The authors successfully establish body as a trope that can possess repressive, authoritative, as well as transformative potential. Overall, the choice of area is unique and offers much scope for future research.

“Body is the only truth we know. It is only through the body that the self can be perceived and understood. There are as many narratives of the body as there are women. There are many kinds of women in this book: women who desire; women who produce life; women who undergo untold suffering; women who are militant; and, women who are battered. This book has different strokes of three Indian women writers and different patterns that emerge in their works. A body bound can take wings. But, for that, what binds it has to be understood. In contextualising the woman’s body and studying its struggles to be free in the works of three writers, the authors have done an in-depth analysis that is both lucid and comprehensive.”

CS Lakshmi (Ambai)

Tamil-writer and Independent Researcher

“In a world where even today, decisions regarding women's bodies are taken by men, whether in the confined space of the home or public spaces like Parliament, this book comes as a reminder that women are thinking human beings, capable of exercising control over their own sexuality. By reading and analysing the works of writers who happen to be female, this remarkable study underlines the need to look at Indian women's writing through the prism of Indian feminism and comes with the necessary corollary to not view men and women as opposing forces but complementary to each other in the fashioning of society and civilisation. The book will serve to raise awareness of what it is to ‘be’ a woman, to how one ‘becomes’ a woman and the often painful journey of taking up the subjective position from being a mere object, and the recognition, establishment—and assertion—of self and identity.”

Malati Mathur

Former Professor of English, Director, School of Humanities

Former Director, School of Foreign Languages IGNOU, Delhi

Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla

“Indian Writing in English (IWE) can be seen as a kaleidoscope that captures and represents diverse shades of India. Post 1980s spawned a meteoric rise of IWE, resulting in its global acclaim and readership. Subsequently, we have also witnessed the formulation of various theories that aim to examine the socio-cultural and political conditions of Indian society. This book is another addition to the rich body of critical theory on feminism. It is informative and engaging, not just due to the sensitivity of the topic it sets out to map but because of the various yet tightly focused approaches and methodologies it offers to its readers. It is a mature reflection on some of the major women writers of our times such as Anita Nair, Meena Kandasamy, and Sreemoyee Piu Kundu. The book delves into the imperative concerns that underpin feminist studies and asks new questions about the relationship of body and agency, vulnerability, and lack of social infrastructure, subjectivity, and empowerment. As a reader, one can register the vitality of freedom that the authors continually contest and debate. For our precarious times that render vulnerability, though in different forms and manifestations, this book elucidates complex theoretical ideas that may help readers to reimagine the perpetual problem of hegemonic realities from the position of feminist theory.”

Om Prakash Dwivedi

Dean I/C School of Liberal Arts, Bennett University

About the Author

Dr. Gunja Patni is Assistant Professor of English at Amity University Rajasthan, Jaipur, with a teaching experience of thirteen years in the areas of English Language and Literature. Dr Patni has to her credit several research papers presented at national and international conferences, publications in journals as well as a few book-chapters. She has been conferred with the “Vimal Sagar Vidvatta Puraskar” in 2014 for the English translation of a book based on Jain philosophy entitled Supreme Digambar Jain Saints: In View of Various Religions of the World (2014). Her areas of interest include Women and Gender Studies, Indian Writing in English, Postcolonial Literature, Cultural Studies, Diaspora Writing, and Business Communication. She can be reached at [email protected]; [email protected]

Dr. Rimika Singhvi is Professor and Head, Dept. of English at IIS (deemed to be University), Jaipur. She is also Director, School of Humanities there. In a career-span of a little over two decades, Dr. Singhvi’s areas of interest have evolved to include Indian writing in English, Diaspora and Young Adult Fiction; Partition and City Narratives; and writings from the Middle East & South/ Central Asia. She has presented several Papers at national and international conferences, both in the country & abroad, published in Journals, contributed Book-chapters and co-authored two Books as well. Additionally, Dr. Singhvi is a Course-writer with IGNOU, New Delhi, and an Oral Examiner for the University of Cambridge, UK’s suite of international tests of Business English. She can be reached at [email protected] ; [email protected].