A Comparative Analysis of Feminist Perspective in the Works of Alice Munro and Ismat Chughtai


Book Description

This book is an analytical investigation into the works of renowned story writers Ismat Chughtai and Alice Munro. Both of the writers are known for their feminist perspectives and portrayal of the complexities of women's lives. The book aims to examine the gender issues depicted in their works and offers a fresh perspective on these themes. By studying the synchronic (current) and diachronic (historical) debates about gender and its realities, the book seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the complex nature of gender, moving beyond simplistic or generic interpretations and aims to bring these discussions out of the realm of generic discourse. The agenda of the book is to make upcoming scholars aware to advocate for a more inclusive approach to addressing gender issues in academic work and thought processes. The book aims to highlight the importance of not solely focusing on women's issues, as this can lead to a biased or sexist perspective. Instead, it promotes acknowledging, communicating, empathizing with, and granting representation to issues faced by men and people of other genders as well, in order to create a more inclusive and balanced discourse on gender-related topics.







The Crooked Line


Book Description

A young Indian woman searches for her own identity as her country fights for independence in this novel from the award-winning Urdu Indian author. The Crooked Line is the story of Shamman, a spirited young woman who rebels against the traditional Indian life of purdah, or female seclusion, that she and her sisters are raised in. Shipped off to boarding school by her family, Shamman grows into a woman of education and independence just as India itself is fighting to throw off the shackles of colonialism. Shamman’s search for her own path leads her into the fray of political unrest, where her passion for her country’s independence becomes entangled with her passion for an Irish journalist. In this semi-autobiographical novel, Ismat Chughtai explores the complex relationships between women caught in a changing culture, and exposes the intellectual and emotional conflicts at the heart of India’s battle for an uncertain future of independence from the British Raj and ultimately Partition.




The Book Review


Book Description




Contemporary Diasporic South Asian Women's Fiction


Book Description

This book is the first comparative analysis of a new generation of diasporic Anglophone South Asian women novelists including Kiran Desai, Tahmima Anam, Monica Ali, Kamila Shamsie and Jhumpa Lahiri from a feminist perspective. It charts the significant changes these writers have produced in postcolonial and contemporary women’s fiction since the late 1990s. Paying careful attention to the authors’ distinct subcontinental backgrounds of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – as well as India - this study destabilises the central place given to fiction focused on India. It broadens the customary focus on diasporic writers’ metropolitan contexts, illuminates how these transnational, female-authored literary texts challenge national assumptions and considers the ways in which this new configuration of transnational, feminist writers produces a postcolonial feminist discourse, which differs from Anglo-American feminism.




The Kite Runner


Book Description

Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.




A Thousand Splendid Suns


Book Description

A riveting and powerful story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship and an indestructible love




A Life in Words


Book Description

A Life in Words, the first complete translation of Ismat Chughtais celebrated memoir Kaghazi hai Pairahan, provides a delightful account of several crucial years of her life. Alongside vivid descriptions of her childhood years are the conflicted experiences of growing up in a large Muslim family during the early decades of the twentieth century. Chughtai is searingly honest about her fight to get an education and the struggle to find her own voice as a writer. The result is a compellingly readable memoir by one of the most significant Urdu writers of all time.




Die, My Love


Book Description

Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2018. A manic, bruising stream of conscious portrayal of a mother and wife struggling to maintain both a normal life and her sanity.




The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing


Book Description

The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing provides a comprehensive historical overview of the diverse literary traditions impacting on this field's evolution, from the eighteenth century to the present. Drawing on the expertise of over forty international experts, this book gathers innovative scholarship to look forward to new readings and perspectives, while also focusing on undervalued writers, texts, and research areas. Creating new pathways to engage with the naming of a field that has often been contested, readings of literary texts are interwoven throughout with key political, social, and material contexts. In making visible the diverse influences constituting past and contemporary British literary culture, this Cambridge History makes a unique contribution to British, Commonwealth, postcolonial, transnational, diasporic, and global literary studies, serving both as one of the first major reference works to cover four centuries of black and Asian British literary history and as a compass for future scholarship.