Tense Past, Tense Present: Women Writing in English

Tense Past, Tense Present: Women Writing in English

Edited by Joel Kuortti

demy octavo hb 130pp ISBN 81-85604-58-4 Rs 450 Feb 2003

Writing in English cannot be neutral. As a colony, the language was inescapably associated with class, race and power; after independence it has grown in power and status yet the problematic of it being the language of the hegemonic West remains. Even so a new canon of women writing in English is being formed. Interviewing seven women writers, Shashi Deshpande, Shama Futehally, Githa Hariharan, Lakshmi Kannan, Sujatha Mathai, Anuradha Marwah-Roy and Mina Singh, Kuortti also presents extracts from their writings. He elicits intriguing responses on why they choose to write in English, their difference from Indians writing from abroad and of their views on women writing in the regional languages.

Joel Kuortti is Acting Professor of English at the Department of English, University of Tempere, Finland. Apart from Indian women’s writings in English, he is interested in diasporic Indian literature and postcolonial and feminist literary theory.

Published By:Stree

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