Review by Bipratip Saha
The Postcolonial Women’s question has always been a site of proliferating debates defying closure. One of the reasons is that in a country like India it happen to be a multiplex terrain where varied voices hitherto marginalised are coming up for articulation in the changing postcolonial scenario with their contesting discourses. The present critical anthology where a group of academicians, mostly young, has come together with their researches in the field can surely be considered a further contribution to it.
Gender question, its nature, and social, political, psychological and existential effects have been studied in the texts of Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande and Nayantara Sehgal. The relationships between caste, class and gender have been explored in the narratives of Arundhati Roy and Sivakami, while themes of diaspora, dislocation and identity are studied in Bharati Mukherjee, Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai.
The other important issues and themes that are counterstaged are those of mother-daughter relationship, Partition and women, same-sex love relationships and the emerging chick-it novels dealing with young, fashionable, independent, working city women. Above all, a comprehensive introduction provides the whole critical and historical perspectives and makes the anthology a commendable scholarly engagement.
The Postcolonial Woman Question. Edited by Professor Girindra Narayan Ray and Dr. Jaydip Sarkar | Flipcart | Rs. 295