A remarkable collection of information on Indian women’s writing written originally in English. Beginning from the 19 century, it introduces 444 writers of poetry and fiction. Now, it has been a part of common critical parlance to say that the Indian English women’s writing is in ascendance. One aim of this bibliography is to illustrate this phenomenon and to emphasise the variety of writing. Writers included in the bibliography come from all over India and from the Indian diaspora all over the world. Having begun with Raja Rammohun Roy’s journalism and essays since 1817 and Henry Derozio’s Poems (1827), already in its early stages, the Indian English literary scene accommodated women writers. The first and most prominent ones are Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu. The scarcity of women’s prose writing remained, nevertheless, a fact for a long time. The major earlier writers are Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Anita Desai. Despite the fact that there exist other writers, the presence of these four is often so overwhelming that no other writers seem to fit in. Another aim of this bibliography is to make us aware of the constructed nature of writerhood. A given writer’s texts do not exist and circulate in a vacuum but in a context. We can see that Indian English women’s writing is taking place. But, what we do not see is the critical establishment, that is, literary scholars and critics, taking much note of it. The book will prove to be an essential reference for scholars involved in the study of Indian women’s writing.
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