A Study of Kamala Markandaya

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Nectar in a sieve: A critical analysis. 3. Theme of hunger and degradation. 4. East-West encounter. 5. Conflict and passivity in Kamala Markandaya. 6. Social and political dimensions. 7. Woman characters as ideal sufferers. 8. Human relationship. 9. Conclusion. Bibliography.

In India, after independence, a change felt by women was that many of the established norms of the society were intended to check or clip their growth as person and not as possession. Many literary writers raised their voices against this old tradition. In Indian English literature, Kamala markandaya an outstanding novelist on the contemporary commonwealth literary circle tries to bring out the plight and struggle of women in a very realistic manner.

Indian English literature has established its credentials all over the world. Still literatures in this stream have to be continuously appraised and evaluated and key issues like the impact of multiculturality and the role assigned to women have to be confronted and analysed threadbare not merely in theory but also through the elucidation of key tests from this perspective. The resent volume scrutinizes Kamala Markandaya’s corpus as part of this general critical endeavour. The volume comprises scholarly studies of Nectar in a Sieve, Possession, A Handful of Rice, A Silence of Desire and Pleasure City, besides examining in depth Kamala Markandaya’s rural sensibility, the silent saga of suffering chronicled in her novels, her philosophic vision of life, her portrayal of social tensions and her feminist poetics, taking a holistic view of her writings.