Critical Perspectives on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Feminism and Diaspora

(Hardback)

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Critical Perspectives on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Feminism and Diaspora offers insights into Chitra Banerjee Divakarunis provocative and popular fiction. In their engaging and comprehensive introduction, editors Amritjit Singh and Robin Field explore how Divakarunis 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 editors offer a range of critical perspectives on Divakarunis 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 herselfa candid expression of her artistic independence in response to the didactic expectations of her many South Asian readers.

Reviews

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is among the most innovative and versatile writers today. Her oeuvre elicits brilliant responses from around the world, each showing her relevance to popular new areas of revisiting mythology, history and diversity. The diaspora view of feminism is a refreshing formulation on multicultural identities, something deep rooted in originary emotions yet layered over by intersectional experiences. This book is a significant contribution to literature and gender studies.

--Malashri Lal, University of Delhi

Focusing on feminism and diaspora, both of which are shifting signifiers. Bringing them together is like aiming at a moving target. However, the editors have aimed well and scored an ace.

--Malashri Lal, University of Delhi

It is so fitting that a book about the work of an author who has written so much and impacted so many fields should be the work of so many contributors and include such a variety of content. This is an invaluable collection for scholars and teachers interested in Divakaruni's oeuvre vis-a-vis diasporic studies, Asian American literature, and women's studies, to name just a few.

--Noelle Brada-Williams, San Jose State University

This much needed, impressively researched, and expertly edited volume is the first to place Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's writing within its appropriate historical, scholarly, and artistic contexts. An impressive collection of cutting-edge essays by both established scholars and newer voices, this book is an invaluable resource for those interested in the re-imagination of South Asian religious, mythological, and historical female figures, as well as for scholars of multi-ethnic literature, transnational studies, and women's diasporic literature.

--Martha J. Cutter, The University of Connecticut

Author Bio

Amritjit Singh is Langston Hughes professor emeritus of English and African American studies at Ohio University.

Robin E. Field is professor of English at Kings College.

Samina Najmi is professor of English at California State University, Fresno.