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In Muslim Indian Women Writing in English: Class Privilege, Gender Disadvantage, Minority Status, Dr. Elizabeth Jackson conducts a study of the literary fiction of the four best-known Muslim Indian women writing in English during the postcolonial period: Attia Hosain (1913–1998), Zeenuth Futehally (1904–1992), Shama Futehally (no relation, 1952–2004), and Samina Ali (b. 1969). As elite Muslim women in India, the literary vision of these authors is influenced by their paradoxical position of class privilege, gender disadvantage, and minority status. Accordingly, there are recurring thematic concerns central to the fiction of all four writers, each of which forms a chapter in the book: "Religion and Communal Identity," "Marriage and Sexuality," "Gender and Social Class," and "Responding to Patriarchy." The first chapter, "Form and Narrative Strategy," provides an initial framework by examining the literary techniques of each writer.Much has been written about literature in English by Indian women, about Muslim literature in general, about the Muslim minority in India, and about Muslim women all over the world. However, until now there has been no major academic study of literature in English by Muslim Indian women. Aimed at researchers, students, and general readers, this book aims to fill that gap in the critical scholarship. “Muslim Indian Women Writing in English is an eagerly awaited and timely intervention into the relatively neglected area of Indian Anglophone writing by Muslim women writers. In her searching monograph, Elizabeth Jackson provides a comparative and developmental study of Indian Muslim women’s fiction produced in the postcolonial era. She interrogates such pressing issues as gender and patriarchy, social class, and religious identity, as well as exploring aesthetic concerns regarding narrative strategies and form. Jackson highlights the authors’ conflicting yet constitutive positionality stemming from their privileged class position, subordinate gender identity, and religious minority status. Her incisive, well-written book should be required reading for students and scholars of Indian writing in English, feminism, and Muslim studies.”—Claire Chambers, co-editor of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature... “Elizabeth Jackson’s comparative study of the literary fiction of four Indian Muslim women writing in English—Zeenuth Futehally, Attia Hosain, Shama Futehally, and Samina Ali—provides much-needed critical reflection on the experiences and articulations of South Asian Muslim femininity over the last six decades. Through a nuanced intersectional analysis of religion, social class, and gender, Jackson engages with the complicated terrains of privilege and oppression in the public and private domains that define women’s experience in and of South Asian modernity. This historically grounded study is a welcome addition to the scholarship on Indian Anglophone fiction, especially by women authors, distinguished by its focus on female Muslim subjectivity.”—Usha Iyer, Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies, Stanford University...
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