Women Writers of the Indian Diaspora – a Study

WOMEN WRITERS OF THE INDIAN DIASPORA – A STUDY

Chitra Dashora, M.A. (English literature) PhD Research Scholar, Department of English, Bhupal Nobles’ University, Udaipur; Rajsathan, India.

Abstract: As we all know that the Diaspora writers create their own place, not only in India but also every place where they are settled. They made their existent from the established of independence to till this date. Diaspora writers and any person, who are migrating in any region of the world and any field of the work, whether in the field of literary, technically, art, genre and etc. Indian Diaspora has been covered the big part of the world. They are diffuse in the world with a very large strength. To take an every Diaspora or notable diaspora person, this article will focus on the women diaspora writer and being a success they have taken a high place.

Index terms - Diaspora, Women, Women Writer, Role of Women Writers, Nostalgia.

I. Introduction:

The history of Diaspora is very old. It has begun with the Jewish context and most prominently excludes of Jews from Judea and the sentiment Greeks after the fall of Constantinople. Gradually the numbers of diaspora expand in several areas of the world. Approximately twenty million Indian immigrants have spread all over the globe. Indian immigrants are living their life in foreign because to gain a high standard life, free trade, high earning and good class livelihood.

From the last two decades, Indian diaspora writers are on the central point because they have made their unique place and contributed to India as well as to the world. Writing is one of the most beautiful arts. Diaspora writing is so significant. It also links with one country to another country. Indian Diaspora writer connects their feeling of nostalgia through their writings. The web is the best medium of connectivity and it’s connected person to person or country to country. Just like an Indian Diaspora, Diaspora women writers have also made their niche, which is very prideful for them. Their creative writing made them eminent at the level of India and worldwide. They have achieved so much because of their versatility and today every diaspora women and women writer is equally commendable to man.

And here is the list of some Indian diaspora women writers in chronological order-

Kamala Markandeya was born on 1924 in Mysore belongs to Hindu family. Kamala Purnaiya Taylor was her pseudonym. She was an Indian novelist, journalist, and activist also. She moved to Britain after India got independent and then she considers herself as an Indian expatriate. ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ was her first published and bestseller novel translated more than a dozen languages. Her other novels are ‘A Silence of Desire’, ‘The Nowhere Man’, ‘The Coffer Dams’, ‘A Handful of Rice’, ‘Possession’, ‘Two Virgins’, ‘The Pleasure city/Shalimar in the American Edition’ and ‘The Golden Honey Comb’.

Anita Desai is an Indian novelist born on 24 June 1937 in Mussorie, daughter of Bengali father and German mother. She is a writer and professor also, now she is a professor at Massachusetts (US). She started writing at the age of seven and at the age of nine, her first story has been published. For the three times, her name was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. (Her name was shortlisted for the Booker prize three times as a writer.) She got Sahitya Akademi Award for her novel ‘Fire on the Mountain’ in the year of 1978. She has also awarded by the Padma Bhushan Award in 2014. ‘Cry, The Peacock’, ‘Bye-bye Blackbird’, are her another notable works. We can see women-centric issues in her works.

Bharati Mukherjee was an Indo American writer born in Kolkata, West Bengal on July 27, 1940. She remained a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote so many short stories which were fiction or nonfiction. She was awarded by the National Book Critics Circle in 1988 for her collection of the short stories ‘The middleman and Other Stories’. Her admitted works are novels, a short story collection, memoir, nonfiction. She regards herself an American writer and not an Indian expatriate writer. ‘Jasmine’ and ‘wife’ are her other works. She died in the age of 76 on Jan 2017.

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Meena Alexandar is an internationally acclaimed poet born in 1951 in Allahabad and grew up in India and Sudan. She is also a writer, scholar, and professor. Nowadays she lives and works in New York City. ‘Raw Silk’ and ‘Illiterate Heart’ are her best- known work and she got PEN Open Book Award for the Illiterate Heart. Her lyrical writing deals with the migration. Her novel ‘Nampally Road’ is haunting and lyrical, which was published in 1999 and this novel pictures contemporary India women’s life and her struggle.

Manjula Padmanabhan born in 1953 in Delhi, raised in Sweden, Pakistan, and Trinidad. She is a playwright, journalist, comic strip artist, an artist, illustrator, and cartoonist. Her one of the best-known play was ‘Harvest’ and she caught the Greek Onassis Award in 1997 for this play out of 1470 persons. ‘Lights Out’ is also a very powerful play and other works are ‘The Artists Model’, ‘Sextet’ and ‘Getting There’ is her semi-autobiographical work.

Chitra Benerjee Divakaruni a versatile writer born on July 29, 1956. She is an Indian American author, poet, short story, fiction, nonfiction, young, adult and children’s writer etc. she was awarded by an American Book Award in 1995 for her short story collection, ‘Arranged Marriage’ and other two novels. She was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for her novel ‘The Mistress of Spices’. She always focuses on the experiences of the South Asian Immigrant and her works are largely depicts on the place of India and the United States. Her fiction has translated into 29 languages.

Anita Rau Badami is a South Asian writer, born in Odisha, India on 24 Sep 1961. And now she settled in Canada. ‘Tamarind Mem’ was her first novel. Her novels share the intricacies of the lives of an Indian family, who turns to the west because of the cultural gap. Her novel ‘The Hero’s Walk’ took place on the top five finalists for CBC Canada Reads Competition.

Meera Syal was born on July 27, 1961, in West Midlands, England. She belongs to the Indian Punjabi family. She is a British writer, comedian, play writer, journalist, producer, singer, and actress. Her family shifted to Britain from New Delhi. She has risen to protuberance as one of the most of UK’s best known Indian personality. She got the MBE in the New Year’s Honours list of 1977. ‘Anita and Me’ was her semi-autobiographical novel.

Atima Shrivastva was born in Mumbai, India in 1961. Now a day she lives in London. She is an author and director and has written so many short stories as well as directing so many films. Her first novel ‘Transmission’ was her semi-autobiographical novel, this is based on a young Anglo-Indian women Angie, whose character is likely as Shrivastava. Her first and second work depicts the story of Young Anglo-Indian women and talks with the same plot, now she is working on her third novel, which titled ‘The Non- Resident Indian’. She was honored so many times for film and literature.

Shauna Singh Baldwin is an Indo-Canadian-American novelist born in 1962. She belongs to Indian blood. Her novel ‘What the Body Remembers’ caught the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the best book from bringing out the Caribbean and long-listed for the Orange Prize in fiction. She was also nominated for Giller Prize for her novel ‘The Tiger Claw’. Her short story collections have been published in various literary magazines.

Bem Le Hunte born in 1964 in Calcutta, India and brought up in India or England, she is a British-Indian- Australian author. She is best known for her novel ‘The Seduction of Silence’ and this novel deals with an Indian family. Her novel ‘The Seduction of Silence’ and ‘Where the Pepper Grows’ both the novels are internationally acclaimed and both have picked up her various positive surveys and a wide thankful readership in the eastern and the western world. She was shortlisted for the Common Wealth Prize in 2001 for her first novel.

Sunetra Gupta is a novelist and professor at an Oxford University, born on 15 Mar 1965 in Calcutta, India and settled in London. She was awarded by the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1996 for her novel ‘Memories of Rain’. She was shortlisted for the crossword award and long-listed for the Orange Prize for her different works. Her writings show cultures, histories and human understanding and considerations. Her fiction moves the central preoccupation of diasporic writings from the crisis of uniqueness to the mapping of a process of experience and feeling.

Anita Nair is an Indian English author born on 26 Jan 1966 in Kerala, India. Her short story ‘Satyr of the Subway’ got a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the creative arts. Nair’s second book was distributed by Penguin India; it was the first book by an Indian writer to be distributed by Picador USA. A top of the line creator of fiction and verse, Nair’s books ‘The Better

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Man and Ladies Coupe’ have been converted into 21 dialects. Her ‘Ladies Coupe’ was very notable work and chosen as one of the five best in India.

Jumpa Lehiri is an Indo American author, belongs to Indian emigrants family and born on 11 July 1967 in London. At present, she is a professor at Princeton University. Her best known, the first novel was ‘Namesake’ this novel bagged the Pulitzer Prize. Her other notable works are acquired short stories ‘Interpreter of Maladies’, was awarded by the Pulitzer Prize fiction and the Hemingway Foundation/ Pen award. Her book ‘The Lowland’ got shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and National book award for fiction.

Kiran Desai is an Indian writer was born on Sep 3, 1971, in New Delhi, India and grew up in India, UK, and the USA. She is the daughter of renowned Indian novelist Anita Desai. Her second novel ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ was very appreciated by critics from Asia, Europe, and United States and she caught Man Booker Prize and National Critics fiction award for this novel. She is one of the most 20 influential global Indian women, was declared by the economic times (India’s leading business publication) in January 2015. Now she is working on her next novel which title is ‘The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia’ and it talks about the loneliness of the globalized world.

Shumona Sinha is a French writer, who is from West Bengal, India. She was born on 27 June 1973. She declares that her homeland is French language only, neither India nor France. Her first novel is ‘Fenêtre sur l'abîme’. Her second novel ‘Assommons les pauvres !’, in which she compares herself as a protagonist and she shows brutally confronted by the misery, both material or intellectual and migrating in Europe for the better life. In her novels, we can see the feeling of nostalgia and somewhere her novels revolve around her motherland. She awarded by the Bengali’s Best Young Poet Award. She got the Prix Valery – Lambaud award and etc.

Anjana Appachana is an Indian author, who belongs to India, lives in the United States. Her first and known work is ‘Incantations and Other Stories’ which all the stories are set in India. Her one of the stories in this collection ‘Her mother’ won an O’ Henry festival prize in 1981 and National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship. ‘Listening Now’ is her first novel and second book. She says that a writer’s life is so comfortable in America in compare of India.

Samina Ali is an Indo- American author, curator, speaker and activist. She was born in Hyderabad, India and raised in India and U.S. she awarded by the Prix Premier Roman Etranger for her novel ‘Madras on Rainy Days’, this book talks about the life of Indian-American Muslim girl, its women’s journey to freedom. The novel has been translated into many languages and released around the world. She remained a finalist for the PEN/ Hemingway award in fiction. Poets and writers magazine named Madras as one of the Top 5 Best Debut Novels of the year. She has been named Muslim Leader of Tomorrow and works actively for Muslim women’s issues. Her most recently essays have been included in ‘The May Queen’ and ‘Living Islam Out Loud anthologies’. She has also written for ‘Self and Child’, ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The San Francisco Chronicle’.

Conclusion:

The list of women diaspora writers is long and elaborate. The roots of diaspora and it is scattering day by day. Their level of work is increasing at the enormously, which is made them prominent. Throughout their work, they have shown their native land, ancestors land and culture. The readers of such literature experienced a lot. They have been collecting mix memories in the immigrant land. They are spotting themselves as protagonists and other leading characters in their work. The stick of root to the ground is common in their some works, in which we can see that the feeling of nostalgia and native land. The number of writers has achieved precious tags and rewarded by numbers titles, which is commendable nationally and internationally. Not only diaspora women writers are in this race but also every woman, who is related to any field of subject and work, they are praiseful for it.

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References:

Anita Nair. .

Anita Rao Badami. .

Anjana appachana. .

Atima Shrivastva. .

Bem Le Hunte. .

Bhaerti mukherjee. .

Chitra benerjee divakaruni. .

Desai, Anita. Cry the peocock. Orient paperback, Dec, 1980.

Diaspora. .

History of Indian Diasopra. .

Kamala markandeya. .

Kiran Desai. . lehiri, Jhumpa. Namesake. Boston: Houghton mifflin, 2004.

Manjula padmanbhan. .

Meena alexander. .

Meera syal. .

Shauna Singh baldwin. .

Shumona Sinha. .

Sunetra Gupta. .

The Indian Diaspora. .

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