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Description

Critical Perspectives on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Feminism and Diaspora offers insights into Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s provocative and popular fiction. In their engaging and comprehensive introduction, editors Amritjit Singh and Robin Field explore how Divakaruni’s short stories and novels have been shaped by her own struggles as a new immigrant and by the influences she imbibed from academic mentors and feminist writers of color. Twelve critical essays by both aspiring and experienced scholars explore Divakaruni's aesthetic of interconnectivity and wholeness as she links generations, races, ethnicities, and nations in her depictions of the diversity of religious and ethnic affiliations within the Indian diaspora. The contributors offer a range of critical perspectives on Divakaruni’s growth as a novelist of historical, mythic, and political motifs. The volume includes two extended interviews with Divakaruni, offering insights into her personal inspirations and social concerns, while also revealing her deep affection for South Asian communities, as well as an essay by Divakaruni herself—a candid expression of her artistic independence in response to the didactic expectations of her many South Asian readers.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction, Amritjit Singh and Robin E. Field
Part 1: Feminist Politics, Feminine Sensibilities
Chapter 1: Between Home and the World: Situating South Asian American Feminism in the Fiction of Chitra Divakaruni, Nalini Iyer
Chapter 2: Helping Women Help Themselves in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives, Payel Basu
Chapter 3: Woman to Woman, Sister to Sister: Feminine Connections in Divakaruni’s Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, Leisl King
Chapter 4: “Her Story” in Chitra Divakaruni and Shashi Despande: Re-Reading the Mahabharata from Women’s Perspectives, Shaweta Nanda
Part II: Narrating Memory and Belonging
Chapter 5: The Statue of Liberty and the Secret Sharer: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s “A Perfect Life”, Sau-ling C. Wong
Chapter 6: Memory, Nostalgia, and Finding Oneself in Divakaruni’s Fiction, Shashikala Assella
Chapter 7: Transnational Hope in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Short Fiction, Elise Auvil
Chapter 8: Morphed Sense of Longing and Belonging in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Arundhati Roy, Metka Zupancic
Part III: Identity Politics and Social Protest
Chapter 9: Spicing It Up: Strategic Orientalism and Racial Interconnectedness as Social Curatives in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl, Pallavi Rastogi
Chapter 10: “It was a Bad Time for Muslims in America”: Representation of Islamophobia in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams and One Amazing Thing, Atreyee Gohain
Chapter 11: Revisiting Mythology and Registering Protest in Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions, Kalyanee Rajan
Chapter 12: Neo-Oriental Representations: Widows in Chitra Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage, Parimala Kulkarni
Part IV: In Her Own Words: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chapter 13: Between Scylla and Charybdis: What Should a Writer Write About and How?, Chitra Divakaruni
Chapter 14: Writing as Spiritual Experience: A Conversation with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Neila C. Seshachari
Chapter 15: “Through This Experience I Connect with You”: An Interview with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Robin E. Field, Cynthia Leenerts, Summer Pervez
About the Contributors

Product details

Published Feb 15 2022
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 276
ISBN 9781498556170
Imprint Lexington Books
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Amritjit Singh

Anthology Editor

Robin E. Field

Anthology Editor

Samina Najmi

Contributor

S. M. Assella

Contributor

Elise Auvil

Contributor

Payel Basu

Contributor

Robin E. Field

Contributor

Atreyee Gohain

Contributor

Nalini Iyer

Contributor

Liesl King

Contributor

Shaweta Nanda

Contributor

Kalyanee Rajan

Contributor

Pallavi Rastogi

Contributor

Metka Zupancic

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