1st Edition
Literary Radicalism in India Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence
Literary Radicalism in India situates postcolonial Indian literature in relation to the hugely influential radical literary movements initiated by the Progressive Writers Association and the Indian People's Theatre Association. In so doing, it redresses a visible historical gap in studies of postcolonial India. Through readings of major fiction, pamphlets and cinema, this book also shows how gender was of constitutive importance in the struggle to define 'India' during the transition to independence.
1. 'The Critical Spirit': Decolonisation and the Progressive Writers Association 2. Gender, Modernity and the Politics of Space: Rashid Jahan, 'Angareywali' 3. Habitations of Womanhood: Ismat Chughtai's Secret History of Modernity 4. Dangerous Bodies: Masculinity, Morality and Social Transformation in Manto 5. 'Straight Talk or Spicy Masala'? Citizenship, Humanism and Affect in the Cinematic Work of KA Abbas 6. Afterword: 'Sustaining Faith' and the Legacy of Progressive Writing
Biography
Priyamvada Gopal is University Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Fellow of Churchill College. She is the author of Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (2005) and has written widely for both academic publications and the print media on literature, culture, and politics in South Asia and Britain.
