Critical Responses to Kiran Desai (Hardcover)  | Released: 2009

With Kiran Desai the ‘fine tradition’ of Indian Booker Prize winners continues. Like her mother Anita Desai, Kiran Desai emerges as a gifted writer. From the mother to the daughter we see a literary tradition being built, starting from Anita Desai’s psychological explorations in her fiction to Kiran Desai’s experiment in the making of a comic fable in Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and her insightful and often humorous commentary on multiculturism, cross-cultural and cross-class understanding, globalization and immigrant experience in The Inheritance of Loss. From the fablesque magic and satiric comedy in her celebrated debut, exuding ‘poetry and joy in language and life’, Desai’s Man Booker Prize winning novel moves effortlessly to ‘illuminate the pain of exile, describing the encroaching morass of westernization and the lingering effects of colonialism,’ spanning continents, generations, religions, and races, with equal felicity and ease. Though Desai’s novel holds a mirror up to the world today, looking at the cultural collisions, cultural encounters, postcolonialism and continuing consumerist imperialism, yet what makes her irresistible is her immense tenderness for the human condition and her understanding of human relationships. By engaging closely with the work of the iconic 21st century writer, Kiran Desai, Critical Responses to Kiran Desai, explores a wide range of critical approaches on various ‘hot button issues’ such as multiculturism, colonialization, representation, diaspora, and globalization which are of much relevance today. Composed substantially of insightful essays, the collection brings together the voices of esteemed scholars as well as those of emergent scholars. One of the first few attempts to offer a sustained and compelling critique of the much acclaimed writer, the book will prove to be valuable to the scholars, students and teachers of English Literature.Table of Contents: Acknowledgements; Preface; Introduction; 1. Globalization’s Discontents: Reading “Modernity” from the Shadows–Melissa Dennihy; 2. Prizing Sameness? Kiran Desai and The Booker Prize–Ana Cristina Mendes; 3. An Enchanting Enigma of Kiran Desai’s Stylistic Nuances in The Inheritance of Loss–Devika; 4. Representation of India in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Krishna Singh; 5. Aspects of Globalization in The Inheritance of Loss–Jackie Haque; 6. Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees and Kiran Desai’s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard: A Comparative Analysis–Elisa Armellino; 7. Anatomising Immigrant Lives: Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Reena Mitra; 8. The Inheritance of Loss: Individuals in Search of the Lost Identity–Sanghita Sen; 9. Of Love, Loss and Longing: A Lacanian Reading of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Anita Singh; 10. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss: A Study in Themes of Rootlessness, Alienation and Death–Gulrez Roshan Rehman; 11. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss: The Politics of Being “A Drab Immigrant”–Kripanath Mishra; 12. Conflicts of Globalization, Multiculturalism and Economic Inequality in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Srutimala Duara; 13. The Inheritance of Loss: A Reading of the Ending–Purnendu Chatterjee; 14. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss: A Study in Insurgency–Sharada Iyer; 15. Memory and Nostalgia: The Diasporic Subject in The Inheritance of Loss–Nishi Pulugurtha; 16. The Colonial Hangover and The Brown Sahib–Madhu Shalini; 17. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss: A Parable on the Predicament of Third World Immigrants–Beena Agrawal; 18. Deviating Ambit and Uprooted Sensibilities in The Inheritance of Loss–Vandana Singh; 19. An Eco-critical Reading of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Neeta Kulshreshtha; 20. Portrayal of Relations in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Anju Bala Agrawal; 21. Postmodern/Postcolonial Spatiality in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Arpita Chattaraj (Mukhopadhyay); 22. Reflective Moods in The Inheritance of Loss–Shaleen Kumar Singh; 23. ‘Imagi-nation’: A Reading of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss–Jati Sankar Mondal; List of Contributors