Transitions: Indian Diaspora and Four Women Writers

Genre : Academic/Doctoral Research
ISBN: 978-93-93063-44-1
Published: November 2023
Pages: 299
Binding: Hardcover
Published by: Virasat Art Publications

In the early years of the new millennium when research on Diasporic theory and the modern Indian Diaspora was at its nascent stage in Indian universities, Dr. Amit Shankar Saha endeavoured to show the transition of the Indian diaspora through its depiction in India Diasporic Literature.

For the said purpose he took four diasporic Indian women writers for an incisive account of the domestic space in the Indian diaspora. The PhD thesis that was produced, under the guidance of Prof. Santanu Majumdar in the English Department of Calcutta University, became pioneering research work in the field, titled ‘The Indian Diaspora in Transition: Reading Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Sunetra Gupta and Jhumpa Lahiri’. He was awarded the PhD degree in 2010.

At the onset this research work gives a historical framework of the old and the modern Indian diasporas and their concerned literature. Through comparisons and study of influences the work aims at giving an overview of the themes of gender and subjectivity in the chosen texts of Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Sunetra Gupta and Jhumpa Lahiri. This work demonstrates the exemplary and pivotal importance of studying the transition of the Indian diaspora in all its specificity. This work will help and inspire researchers and academics to delve further in the area because transition is a constant phenomenon in this world and we are all living in some diaspora or the other. Portions of it have been included in the study material in Paper-8: ‘New’ Literatures in English, Module-9: Diaspora, Home and New English Literatures in UGC’s e-PG Pathshala.