3 Review(s)

The world body of literature in English, during the last few centuries, has been immensely enriched by women writers with their sharp perception and profound insight into hitherto unexplored areas of human experience on the one hand, and technical innovations—often daring and always refreshing—on the other. The twenty essays included in the present volume introduce us to a wide spectrum of writers and their specific historical-cultural contexts. Thus, we have discussion on eminent writers like Toni Morrison from black America as well as Margaret Atwood from Canada, who have made their unmistakable mark in their respective milieu as well as in the global arena today. In addition, we have diasporic and emigre writers—renowned and established authors of an earlier generation as well as younger writers of a more recent crop—like Bharati Mukherjee, Nayantara Sahgal, Shobhaa De and Ruth Jhabvala on the one hand and Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Kiran Desai on the other. As usual, Indian writers have attracted considerable critical attention, and a host of them—from Toru Dutt to Kamala Markandya, Anita Desai to Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande to Manju Kapur, and even a recent entrant like Sonia Faleiro—have been taken up by the present writers from various interesting and relevant critical and theoretical perspectives. In addition to this, the volume includes a broad survey of Indian women poets in English and also an examination of ‘feminism’ in the context of newly emerging social and ethical values vis-a-vis the woman. Since most of these authors are prescribed in the English syllabi in the universities of India, both the teachers and the students will find them extremely useful, and the general readers who are interested in literature in English and/or women writers will also find them intellectually stimulating.