Gender and Politics in Nayantara Sahgal

by Rachel Bari


Formats

Softcover
₹ 299.00
Softcover
₹ 299.00

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 30-11-2015

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 5x8
Page Count : 128
ISBN : 9781482867176

About the Book

This work is a gendered reading of Sahgal as a writer of fiction and looks at events in post- Independence India from a gendered perspective. As a tangent, it has also discussed the reliability of fiction as a source material for history. The debate and dichotomy between fiction and history are an important part of the book also. Through its attention to the detail of minor events, Sahgal’s way of writing was better at highlighting the social aspects than the greater moments of history. It is essentially a picture of India and the many faces of India through not only its women but also through the relationship shared between men and women and the societies in which they lived in. Be it religion or politics, these men and women had something to say. They critiqued it, compared it, compromised, and negotiated with the changes that were affecting their beliefs from one political scenario and ideology to another. Through them we see a country emerge from a country in shackles to a country fighting its restraints and prejudices and accepted notions and ideologies to make itself felt in the outside world. It had its fair share of problems inside too, and the many characters created by Sahgal wade through it, sifting the best in India to emerge with an identity. There are larger forces at work and Sahgal’s world is a country in transition and her characters probe India. There are questions of morality, faith, gods, attitudes, ambitions, hopes, and also despairs.


About the Author

Dr. Rachel Bari is a Professor of English at the Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar. She has twenty-two years of teaching experience in the university system. Her doctoral thesis on Eugene O Neill, titled “Freud and Beyond: A Feminist Interpretation of O’Neill,” has been published under the title “Paradoxical Women: Irigaray, Femininity, and Eugene O’Neill.” She has more than thirty publications—articles, short stories, poems, etc.—to Poetry Today, Poetcrit, Poetry Globe Anthology, the Literary Criterion, Dhvanyaloka, etc. She has also contributed a series of articles to the Kannada Encyclopedia published by the Kannada University, Hampi Karnataka, India Her articles have been included in the book “Discoursing Minority: In-Text and Co-Text”, “Growing up as a Woman Writer (Sahitya Akademi) 2007, and also in “Contemporary Women’s Writing in India” published by Lexington, Rowman, and Littlefield, New York and London in 2014. She has also edited a book, “Visualization of Women in Media, Literature, and Science,” brought out by the Women’s Resource Center, Kuvempu University, Karnataka, India, where she worked earlier. She has also edited a book in Kannada, “Mahile mathu Malenaadu” (Women and Malnad), and a handbook, “Problems of Adolescence.” A few of her articles have been translated into Kannada. Her areas of interest are Gender and Women’s Studies, South Asian Women’s Writing, American Literature and Indian Writing in English and in Translation.