LITERARY CONSTRUCTS OF THE SELF: Socio-Cultural Contexts

“Literary Constructs of the Self: Socio-Cultural Contexts” presents 19 essays, divided into two sections. Creative writers like U.R. Ananthamurthy, Rajee Seth, Mridula Garg, Lakshmi Kannan and Uma Parameswaran explore the diverse modes of the narration of the self in literary texts and share their views on the construction of the self, the impact of language upon the persona within the text and other related issues.

Critical essays in Section II examine the impact of translations between languages, forms and mediums of literary constructions on the making of the self; writers’ locations in history, nation, region and diasporic shifts are among the various contexts that shape not only their narratives but also the human images they contain. Eminent critics like Jasbir Jain, Harish Narang, Sudha Rai, Sudha Shastri, Urmil Talwar and Mini Nanda read afresh literary texts, autobiographies and films, to relate them to their specific socio-cultural, aesthetic and psychological contexts. The various frameworks work upon the imagination and creative powers that go on to formulate the human self in all its heterogeneity. Poetry, drama, films and fiction are among the different cultural texts that these critics and writers explore in their deliberations upon the narrations of the self-imagined, real, personal and community-centred.

Santosh Gupta was formerly Professor of English at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. Her major interests are in modern fiction—British, American and Indian. She has recently completed a major UGC project on Modern Prison Narratives.

Mini Nanda is Associate Professor in English at the University of Rajasthan. Interested in British studies, she has moved onto Canadian and Canadian native traditions, Indian literatures and feminist studies. At present Nanda is working on Muslim women writers with special reference to partition novels and films.