A Study of Female Characters in Diaspora Literature with Special Reference to Select Works of Meena Alexander and Chitra Banerjee
Abstract
Meena Alexander returned to India in the 1970s to teach at the university in
Hyderabad. The author makes a reference to the origin of Nampally Road in her
autobiography Fault Lines. As the title of the memoir indicates, her sense of
displacement or dislocation is such a strong sentiment, owing perhaps to the
physical path of her life that she appears to struggle with lines, boundaries and
environments in her work and self. This universal sense of displacement is
evidenced in Nampally Road, where much like the author, the main character Mira
Kannadical returns with much optimism to make a new beginning in her
homeland, extremely disaffected after her four‐year study stint in England. Mira’s
return coincides with preparations for the festivities surrounding the 60th birthday
celebrations of Limca Gowda, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
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References
Alexander, Meena. Nampally Road. Chennai: Disha Books1992.
Alexander, Meena. Manhattan Music. Mercury House: USA 1997.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Sister of My Heart. Great Britain: Doubleday 1999.
Divakaruni, Chitra. The Mistress of Spices. London: Black Swan 2005.
Nalini, M. “Sharpened Sensibility in an Exiled Woman Novelist: A Study of Bharati
Mukherjee”. Indian Women Writing in English: New Perspectives. ed. S. Prasanna
Sree. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2005.
Khan, Hafiza Nilofar. “Rev. of Sister of My Heart.” The Toronto Review of Contemporary
Writing Abroad. 18.1 (Fall 1999) : 103-107.
Alexander, Meena. Fault Lines. New York: Feminist Press 1993.
Alexander, Meera. Poetics of Dislocation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2009.