Author: Jasbir Jain
Publisher: Sahitya Akademi
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 528
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788126025473
Description
The present volume brings to the reader the works of women writers in India across languages, regions, religions, socioeconomic structures, caste hierarchies and genres. In its wide-ranging presentation of creative writing, it also works across generations.
A product of the proceedings of two seminars on women writers orgainised by the Sahitya Akademi, the volume brings together debates on definition of women’s writing and feminism, personal narratives and recollection, poetry and short stories that reflect different hues of life. The insights the writers provide convey the Indian reality with all its immediacy and in this lies the strength of these writings.
Writing, as it moves from the oral to the written text, simultaneously represents a sense of freedom, a discovery of the self and reaching out to the other. The critical essays go on to interrogate literary canons, modes of representation, aesthetics, feminist positions and the question of readership. Ranging from the personal to the political, from the lyrical to the hardcore intellectual voice, the volume conveys the vibrancy of the writing of women in India today. Under the cover, we have here, the making of a new literary tradition.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
WOMEN WRITING IN INDIA
Nabaneeta Dev Sen
Women Writing in India at the Turn of the Century
Krishna Sobti
Discovering Hashmat
GROWING UP AS A WOMAN WRITER
Sarah Aboobacker
Growing Up as a Woman Writer
Abburi Chaya Devi
Provoked into Writing
Mridula Garg
My World, My Writing
Mallika Amar Sheikh
The Meaning of One’s Being
Padma Sachdev
Being a Writer
Jeelani bano
How did a Woman Get Hold of a Pen?
Rajee Seth
From Being to Becoming
Pratibha Ray
Sky is Not the Limit
Indira Goswami
My Journey as a Writer
Meena Kakodkar
Grandmother’s Storeroom
Neelum Saran Gour
Grandfather, Are You Listening?
III
DIFFERENT FRAMES
Chitra Mudgal
The Ball
Himanshi Shelat
Tonight
Esther David
Nanki Chirai
Sivashankari
Septic
Neelum Saran Gour
Under the Bodhi Tree
Sarah Aboobacker
The Birth
Alka Saraogi
‘Yeh rehguzar Na Hot’: Were It Not For This
Shashi Deshpande
‘Hear Me, Sanjay...’
Abburi Chaya devi
That’s Culture
Surjit Sarna
The distance tolahore
Indira goswami
The Journey
Meena Kakodkar
Release from Bondage
Volga
Confluence
Vijaya Rajadhyaksha
Just One Night
Joya Mitra
Sprout of Darkness
Bama
Annachi
IV
SONGS OF THE BIRD OF FIRE
Joya Mitra
The Songs of the Bird of Fire
To My Sister
Lakshmi Khannan
Ask for the Moon
Mandarapu Hymavathy
Beware of...
The Penthouse
J. Bhagyalakshmi
The Giver
Ring Master
Frames
Ranjita Nayak
Discovery
Blue Bird
Anamika
A Swayamwar of Crows
The Door
Women
All By Herself
Anupama Basumatary
Through a Rain-Soaked Night
Moored to a Silvery Night
The Laboratory
Prabhjot
Stones of Kuneitra
Shakuntala and Dushyant
Doomed
Savithri Rajeevan
She
The Mirror
Sanskritirani Desai
As Soon as I Finish Writing a Poem
Our Sky
Keeps Beating the Drum
Metamorphosis
Mamta Sagar
Talking About Dharma / Adharma
Rain
Dreams
The Besheet
Shards Krishna
Bread and Poetry
Padma Schdev
Time Saves Me
Sunita Jain
Water
Generation
V
HISTORIES, POSITIONS, REDEFINITIONS
Neerja Mattoo
Transforming Gaze:
Some Kashmiri Women Poets
B. DChandrika
In Search of Infinity: parallel Strands in
Women’s Fiction in Malayalam
Mridual Garg
Women as Society in Literature
Jasbir Jain
From Exxperience to Aesthetics:
The Dialectics of Language and representation
Prabha Ganorkar
A Language of My own:
Language, Self and Representation
Lipispuspa Nayak
The Feminist Interrogation: Three Oriya Texts
Lakshmi Kannan
The Rangoli Woma
Priya Sarukkai Chabria
The Centrality of Wander
C. Vijayasree
Bodily Issues: Reflection on Women’s
Poetry in Telugu
Tutun Mukherjee
Writing ‘Age’: Senility and Gender
Rathi Menon
Malayalam Women’s Writing in the 20th Century
Neerja Mattoo
Turn of the Century Women’s Writing in Kashmir
Rachel Bari
Dalit Reminist Experiences: Subversion of the
High Theory of Feminism
Jancy James
Empowering Vengeful...
Dhanwan Kaur
Sukhwant Kaur Mann:
Preserving Cultural Memory Through Fiction
Jasbir Jain
Feminist Writing and the Question of Readership
Contributors