• ISBN13: 9788126925797
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd
• Publisher Imprint: N/A
• Publication Date: May 25, 2021
• Pages: 458
• Original Price: INR 1295.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 550 grams

The book is a comprehensive and critical analysis of selected novels of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor and attempts to examine the “Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow” of the African-American women in America, who have been treated as “The Mules of the World”. The book foregrounds palimpsests in history and imaging or representations in literary and cultural texts to highlight the unique and ground-breaking implications of relocating the dilemma of the African-American Diaspora in the context of their labor roles. Crosscutting issues of race, class and gender are engaged with and myths revisited to be debunked through perceptive readings of the novels of the aforesaid writers. The book encapsulates the academic intent and endeavor of its author to unfold further critical dimensions and possibilities of literary re-readings for present researchers in so far as it offers a deep critical comprehension of intersecting issues of ethnicity, identity, self-identification and literary representations in the tangled web of existential experience of the African-American Diaspora.

Dr. Madhumita Purkayastha works as an Associate Professor in the Department of English, D.H.S.K. College, Dibrugarh, Assam. Her maiden research project leading to the award of her Doctoral degree is an exhaustive analytical study of fictional/literary representations of the lives and labors of African-American women in America—the content of the present publication.
She has written popular articles and published extensively in national and international journals. She has authored textbooks and has been invited as Speaker across the nation at national and international seminars and conferences. Although most of her work has been critical or academic in nature, she has also dabbled with translation work and creative writing in English and Bengali, mostly short stories and poems. She is a Women’s Studies researcher and activist and has collaborated with organizations and academic institutions in terms of research and training.