About the Book
Feminism and Diaspora: Critical Perspectives on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 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.
Contents
Introduction / Amritjit Singh and Robin E. Field
Part 1: Feminist Politics, Feminine Sensibilities1. Between Home and the World: Situating South Asian American Feminism in the Fiction of Chitra Divakaruni / Nalini Iyer
2. Helping Women Help Themselves in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives / Payel Basu
3. Woman to Woman, Sister to Sister: Feminine Connections in Divakaruni’s Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart / Leisl King
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
5. The Statue of Liberty and the Secret Sharer: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s “A Perfect Life” / Sau-ling C. Wong
6. Memory, Nostalgia, and Finding Oneself in Divakaruni’s Fiction / Shashikala Assella
7. Transnational Hope in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Short Fiction / Elise Auvil
8. Morphed Sense of Longing and Belonging in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Arundhati Roy / Metka Zupancic
Part III: Identity Politics and Social Protest9. Spicing It Up: Strategic Orientalism and Racial Interconnectedness as Social Curatives in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl / Pallavi Rastogi
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
11. Revisiting Mythology and Registering Protest in Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions / Kalyanee Rajan
12. Neo-Oriental Representations: Widows in Chitra Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage / Parimala Kulkarni
Part IV: In Her Own Words: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni13. Between Scylla and Charybdis: What Should a Writer Write About and How? / Chitra Divakaruni
14. Writing as Spiritual Experience: A Conversation with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni / Neila C. Seshachari
15. “Through This Experience I Connect with You”: An Interview with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni / Robin E. Field, Cynthia Leenerts, Summer Pervez
About the Author / Editor
Amritjit Singh is Langston Hughes Professor Emeritus of English and African American Studies at Ohio University.
Robin E. Field is Professor of English at King’s College.
Samina Najmi is Professor of English at California State University, Fresno.
