Muslim Indian Women Writing in English

Elizabeth Jackson

Muslim Indian Women
Writing in English

Class Privilege, Gender
Disadvantage, Minority Status

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Frankfurt • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jackson, Elizabeth, author.

Title: Muslim Indian women writing in English: class privilege, gender

disadvantage, minority status / Elizabeth Jackson.

Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017037203 | ISBN 978-1-4331-4995 (hardback: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4331-5330-3 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-5331-0 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-4331-5332-7 (mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Indic fiction (English)—Women authors—History and criticism.

Indic fiction (English)—Muslim authors—History and criticism.

Muslim women—India. | Muslim women in literature.

Social classes in literature. | Sex role in literature.

Classification: LCC PR9492.6.W6 J33 2018 | DDC 823/.9140992870954—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017037203

DOI 10.3726/b11838

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

© 2018 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

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www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
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About the author

Elizabeth Jackson has a BA from Smith College and a PhD from the University of London. Currently a lecturer (professor) at the University of the West Indies (Trinidad), she is best known for her book Feminism and Contemporary Indian Women’s Writing (2010).

About the book

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.

Advance praise for

Muslim Indian Women Writing in English

“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

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1

Form and Narrative Strategy

Chapter 2

Religion and Communal Identity

Chapter 3

Marriage and Sexuality