Along with a range of socio-cultural, political and economic concerns, the focus on ‘self’ has been an inevitable assertion of writers during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Individualistic in tone, the contemporary women novelists are trying to portray realistically the predicament of modern women torn between the forces of tradition and modernity, their sense of frustration and alienation, the emotional and psychological turmoil and complexities of man-women relationships and subtleties of feminine consciousness against the persistent patriarchal social set-up. Cognizant of the evils originating from patriarchy, a positive sense of feminine identity has been recognized by them and the result is the emergence of a new woman in Indian society and its concept in the Indian English novel which has assumed a strident posture in the contemporary writings by women. The shift from submission to assertion, acquiescence to resistance and obedience to rebellion, however, has not been abrupt and effortless. Women are still in the process of negotiation with different limiting factors and thresholds of patriarchy to claim their due space and affirm their identity. The present study is an attempt to critically investigate the negotiations with cultural norms by the women characters in the selected novels by the contemporary novelists, namely Manju Kapur and Anita Nair. Almost all the women characters, major and minor, from the selected novels have been considered and positioned as per their ideological leanings and convictions under two thematic chapters namely “Women in the Clutches of Traditional Norms,” and “Tradition to Modernity.” The major issues around which the novels move – education, marriage, gendered space and mother-daughter relationships – are taken up to put them within the contemporary social conditions in which women characters live. The present book is divided into five chapters to make a critical and analytical study of the select novels of these contemporary Indian women writers in English. The present work is focused on five selected novels: Manju Kapur’s “Difficult Daughters”, “Home” and “Custody” and Anita Nair’s “Ladies Coupé” and “Mistress”.

Global and cosmopolitan since the late nineteenth century, anglophone South Asian women's writing has flourished in many genres and locations, encompassing diverse works linked by issues of language, geography, history, culture, gender, and literary tradition. Whether writing in the homeland or in the diaspora, authors offer representations of social struggle and inequality while articulating possibilities for resistance. In this volume experienced instructors attend to the style and aesthetics of the texts as well as provide necessary background for students. Essays address historical and political contexts, including colonialism, partition, migration, ecological concerns, and evolving gender roles, and consider both traditional and contemporary genres such as graphic novels, chick lit, and Instapoetry. Presenting ideas for courses in Asian studies, women's studies, postcolonial literature, and world literature, this book asks broadly what it means to study anglophone South Asian women's writing in the United States, in Asia, and around the world.

Meet Akhila: forty-five and single, an income-tax clerk, and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life - always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider - until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari. In the intimate atmosphere of the all-women sleeping car - the 'Ladies Coupe' - Akhila asks the five women the question that has been haunting her all her adult life: can a woman stay single and be happy, or does she need a man to feel complete? This wonderfully atmospheric, deliciously warm novel takes the reader into the heart of women's lives in contemporary India, revealing how the dilemmas that women face in their relationships with husbands, mothers, friends, employers and children are the same world over.

A woman in an arranged marriage is liberated by a desire that threatens her family and future An only child raised to become a dutiful wife, Astha is filled with unnamed longings and untapped potential. In the privacy of her middle-class Indian home, she dreams of the lover who will touch her soul. But her future was mapped out long ago: betrothal to a man with impeccable credentials, with motherhood to follow. At first, Astha’s arranged union with handsome, worldly Hemant brings her great joy and passion. But even after bearing him a son and daughter, she remains unfulfilled. Her search for meaning takes her into a world of art and activism . . . and a relationship that could bring her the love and freedom she desires. But at what cost to her marriage and family?

Set against the tumult of the 1947 Partition, Manju Kapur’s acclaimed first novel captures a life torn between family, desire, and love The one thing I had wanted was not to be like my mother. Virmati is the eldest of eleven children, born to a respectable family in Amritsar. Her world is shaken when she falls in love with a married man. Charismatic Harish is a respected professor and her family’s tenant. Virmati takes up with Harish and finds herself living alongside his first wife. Set in Amritsar and Lahore and narrated by Virmati and her daughter, Ida, a divorcée on a quest to understand and connect with her departed mother, Difficult Daughters is a stunning tale of motherhood, love, and finding one’s identity in a nation struggling to discover its own. Winner of the 1999 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book (Eurasia Region) and shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award in India.

An unforgettable novel about what happens when a marriage collapses Shagun is a woman of unassailable social standing, married to a man chosen for her—a rising executive. Her lover is her husband’s boss. She asks for a divorce, and all hell breaks loose. Locked in a venomous legal battle for custody of their eight-year-old son and two-year-old daughter, Shagun and Raman begin a journey that will have unforetold consequences. Set against the backdrop of upper-middle-class South Delhi, Custody is both a searing indictment of India’s judicial system and an intimate portrait of a failing marriage and a family.

Since there was hardly any book written on the concept of ‘New Woman’ compiling the works of Indian English writers, the author had long-felt desire to bring out a compact volume in this field. The present volume is like a dream come true as it prepares the solid ground for the long-cherished desire of the author. The book New Woman in Indian English Literature: From Covert to Overt is an attempt to combining the varied shapes of new emerging trend of womanhood in Indian English Literature into a single whole. The book covers twenty six well explored articles on this recent trend of writing which has been fast growing since last few decades. The contributing authors are very deep, sincere and reflective in the articulation of their original ideas and views. Authors are hopeful that the book will bring into focus many new things and ideas yet to be explored and thus will be useful to critical minds.